LOVE-TRIUMEHI 



liMm 



\U: V 




mLAwwmtE 

■ KNOWLE 




Class 3Ssis:„^,_ 

CcpightN"_42_04i 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Hotje EviuMV^unt 



3lo\)e Criumpljant 



A Book of Poems 



By 

Frederic Lawrence Knowles 

Author of 
**On Life's Stairway," etc. 




Boston 
Dana Estes & Company 

Publishers 



OCT 6 1904 
'iopyrffht Entry 

OLASS «^ XXo. Na 

COPY B 






Copyright, ig04 
By Frederic Lawrence Knowles 

All rights reserved 



LOVE TRIUMPHANT 



(UToIontal i^rtss 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Slmonds & Co. 
Boston, Mass.. U. S. A. 



V 



TO 

Lotttfie Cl^anUIcr iHouIton 

BY HER AFFECTIONATE FRIEND 
THE AUTHOR 



Note 

Acknowledgments are hereby made to the 
Century, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Mag- 
azine, Poet-Lore, National Magazine, Brown 
Book, Christian Endeavor World, and other 
periodicals, for their courteous permission to 
reprint copyright poems. 



zratile of ©ontentfii 



I. 

PAGB 

Love Triumphant . . . . . . . 1 

Love and History 3 

Love's World . . . . . . . . 5 

A Woman's Heart 7 

To An Old Playmate 8 

If Love Were Jester at the Court of Death . 9 

The Singer 10 

The Celestial Moment 12 

A Memory 14 

The Hour of Fire 16 

At Dawn 19 

Her Lips . .20 

Creation 21 

A Song of Content 22 

The Ballad of Eden 23 

To A Discoverer 26 

Love's Awakening . . . . . . .27 

Love's Fulfilment 29 

The Last Word 30 

ix 



©aiilt of eontentf^ 



PAGE 

Love's Price 32 

Joy and Sacrifice 34 

The Survivor 36 



n. 

The Larger View 39 

Veritas ... 41 

Directions to a Traveller 42 

The Twofold Prayer 43 

Golgotha . . 45 

The Nurse 46 

Laus Mortis 48 

A Prayer 50 

Birth 51 

The Golden Door 52 

Credo 63 

Love Immortal .64 

Bethlehem Morn 66 

The Widow's Son 67 

Shekinah 58 

The Sea of Faith 59 

The Answer 61 

A Simple Story 63 

Her Transplanted Rose 64 

The Steps 66 

On the Path 67 

To AN Oak 68 

A Challenge 69 

What Is Heaven ? 71 

X 



ffiaftlr of Contents 



PAGE 

Oct of the Depths 74 

O Troubled over Many Things .... 76 

III. 

The Glass 79 

Sin's Foliage 80 

One Woman 81 

Betrayed 82 

To the Moon 84 

Lost 86 

The Three 88 

Discord 90 

The Discipline of Failure 92 

In a Far Country 94 

L'Envoi 97 

IV. 

Hail, America ! 101 

The Coming Singer 102 

The New Patriot 104 

The Masters 106 

A Modern Poet 107 

The New Age Ill 

Son op the Puritans 112 

Dives and Lazarus, 1904 113 

The Christmas for America ..... 116 
The World's New Waterway . . . .118 

To A Modern Office Building .... 120 

The Poet for To-day 122 

New England 124 

xi 



SCafile of Contents 



PAGE 

V. 

A Song of Desire 133 

A Song of Memory 134 

The Glimpse 136 

To Mother Nature 137 

The Sea 139 

The Waverley Oaks 140 

The April Boy 142 

A Song of Sailing 144 

To A Broken Sea -Shell 146 

The Thief . 148 

The Kingdom of the Sunrise .... 160 

The Man -Child 162 

To A Locomotive at Night 166 

The Child Who Went Away .... 157 

Our Friend 100 

The Closed Gentian 162 

To Poetry 163 

Desire 164 

The Call of the Country 166 



xii 



I. 



*'The truth of truths is love." 

— Bailey's '■'■Festus. 



ilo\je Crtumpf)ant 



LOVE TRIUMPHANT 

HELEN'S lips are drifting dust; 
Ilion is consumed with rust; 
All the galleons of Greece 
Drink the ocean's dreamless peace; 
Lost was Solomon's purple show 
Restless centuries ago; 
Stately empires wax and wane — 
Babylon, Barbary, and Spain; — 
Only one thing, undefaced. 
Lasts, though all the worlds lie waste 
And the heavens are overturned. 
— Dear, how long ago we learned ! 

There's a sight that blinds the sun, 
Sound that lives when sounds are done, 
Music that rebukes the birds, 
Language lovelier than words, 
1 



aotoe Zxiumptimit 



Hue and scent that shame the rose, 
Wine no earthly vineyard knows, 
Silence stiller than the shore 
Swept by Charon's stealthy oar, 
Ocean more divinely free 
Than Pacific's boundless sea, — 
Ye who love have learn'd it true. 
— Dear, how long ago we knew ! 



^ 



aoUt Zvinmpftiint 



LOVE AND HISTORY 

ROSES shed their petals 
Countless Junes ago, 
And those dead Decembers 
Brought their snow. 

Weary eyes were covered 
With their patient lids, 

By the yet unbuilded 
Pyramids. 

Life and Death, like sweethearts. 
Wandering hand in hand, 

Then, as now, stole over 
Sea and land. 

Lovers kissed and parted. 
Eyes were moist and blue, 

In the Midian meadows 
Moses knew. 

Cheeks were wet with weeping. 
Brows were hot with fire. 

Ere the hand of Homer 
Swept the lyre. 
S 



aobe Jitvinmpftant 



And this masque of midnight, 
And the moon's white face, 

Looked on Nile and Jordan, 
Thebes and Thrace. 

Must the mint be new, dear, 

If the coin is gold? 
Though youth dies. Love never 

Waxes old. 

History means this morning, 
Greece is here and now; 

Let us drain Time's beaker — 
I and thou! 

Press thy lips to mine, dear, 
Thus — and thus — and thus ; 

Space and time shall perish. 
Slain by us. 

All the lands of wonder — 
Years of pain and bliss. 

We will taste together 
In that kiss ! 



aotie ^vinmpfiunt 



LOVE'S WOKLD 

THE earth upon its axis span 
Or e'er our Father fashioned man. 
He viewed His worlds and called them good 
In their new-quickened lustihood; 
The flowers made riot with perfume, 
And every grot was rank with bloom, 
Yea, death-doomed beauty made so free, 
It mimicked immortality — 
Wings cleft the air, fins clave the deep, 
All day was song, all night was sleep. 
But still, O still, unborn were three — 
Pain, Sin, and History ! 

God knows how much those Junes have missed. 
Where lips of woman ne'er are kissed — 
Ah, lonely lanes be they, God knows, 
Where never lover plucks a rose ! 
The Sun, to his new course addressed. 
Feels his slow way across the West — 
Before one guest His door unbars 
God lights a million welcoming stars ; 
The moon looks down on grass and wave, 
And sees an Earth without a grave! 
5 



Hoiie Evinmpf^nni 



For still, O still, unborn are three — 
Grief, Death, and Memory ! 

love, lean close ! My spirit's drouth 
Is quenched of thirst against thy mouth ; 

1 crave thy human warmth, my soul 
Thou fillest as an emptied bowl ! 
Pour in this cup all mad desire. 
Pour longing with its ruthless fire ! 

I drain the liquor to the lees — 

Did Eden know fierce joys like these? 

O dearest, what could life have meant 

To one in that fair prison pent — 

That hapless world without these three — 

Love, Sympathy — and Thee ! 



6 





ilotie 2Ct(f 




A WOM' 


A BUTTE^ 
r\ Slie '' 
Her beautv 

Her ni 
Her bl 

A 
H 



vittmpfiunt 



YMATE 

roses, 
vheat, 



aoiie ^riumjitjant 



IF LOVE WERE JESTER AT THE 
COURT OF DEATH 

IF Love were jester at the court of Death, 
And Death the king of all, still would I 

" For me the motley and the bauble, yea, 
Though all be vanity as the Preacher saith. 
The mirth of love be mine for one brief breath ! " 

Then would I kneel the monarch to obey. 

And kiss that pale hand, should it spare or 
slay; 
Since I have tasted love, what mattereth ! 
But if, dear God ! this heart be dry as sand. 

And cold as Charon's palm holding Hell's toll, 
How worse, how worse! Scorch it with sorrow's 
brand ! 

Haply, though dead to joy, 'twould feel that 
coal; 
Better a cross, and nails through either hand. 

Than Pilate's palace and a frozen soul ! 



3Loi}t tltvlnmpftnnt 



THE SINGER 

BEFORE that crowd she stood, a flowerlike 
thing — 
That curious crowd that came to see her sing 
(See more than hear, her beauty's fame was 

such). 
Unconscious as a child, save for a touch 
Of happy fear like some wild bird was she, 
Instinct with light, and fire, and purity ; 
But when she sang, there fell so deep a hush. 
The listening ear might almost hear a blush ! 
Methinks the very footlights must have felt 
The wonder and the fragrance where they knelt. 
Across the years once more I see her stand. 
The sheet of music trembling in her hand. 

Suitors she had in plenty ; men who flung 
Their hearts with their bouquets when she had 

sung; 
She laugh'd in girlish ignorance, nor guess'd 
The flattery in the voices that caress'd. 
But, lest his blossom suff*er blight withal. 
Came jealously the Lover of us all, 
And wooed her spirit with his subtlest breath — 
What lad hath kiss'd so many lips as Death ! 
10 



aotie Evlnmpftunt 



Through blinding tears once more I see her lie 
Like a pale lily, garnered for the sky ! 

Mayhap one voice was missing in the choir 
That sings forever round God's feet of fire; 
Mayhap the Seraphim, leaning low, had caught 
Her little human echo of God's thought. 
And wished her thither, till she, answering, rose. 
Loth to leave these her friends, yet fain for 

those, 
More distant but more dear, whose lips were 

placed 
Warm on the Bridegroom's, passionately chaste. 
I know not; this I know: mine ear shall keep 
Those great soprano sounds until I sleep ; 
And this I know : her brow, her hair, her eye, 
Shall be to me a glory till I die ! 



11 



aotit ^vinmpfiant 



THE CELESTIAL MOMENT 

I AM only a sigh of the Infinite Powers, 
Only God's breath on a glass, 
Only one pulse of the endless hours, 
Only a breeze on the grass. 

I am only the spray on a poising wave, 

A cataract's foam and froth, 
A mushroom springing by night on a grave, 

The dust on the wings of a moth. 

I am only the flight of a sweet, swift dream. 

The shadow cast by a cloud, 
A seed that is dropp'd by a Hand Supreme 

In the heart of a field unploughed. 

And yet do you pity the butterfly 

That his hour so quickly goes. 
If over him swoons the passionate sky 

And under him faints the rose? 

O turn to me, lean to me, lips that I love! 

One moment of merciful bliss, — 
Ere my shade shall be borne to those stars above 

Where only the ghosts may kiss ; — 
12 



ILotir STtiumjii^ant 



Back to the stars from whence I came — ■ 

Over a bHndfold way, 
Far, O far, hke a spark to its flame, 

I who have lived my day, — 

Who have Hved my day when I flash and poise 

The rose of the world above. 
Then home like a joy to the source of joys — 

A love that is lost in Love. 



13 



lLoi}t SCtrtttuijpJja^nt 



A MEMORY 

THE Night walked down the sky 
With the moon in her hand ; 
By the hght of that yellow lantern 
I saw you stand. 

The hair that swept your shoulders 

Was yellow, too, 
Your feet as they touched the grasses 

Shamed the dew. 

The Night wore all her jewels. 

And you wore none, 
But your gown had the odor of lilies 

Drench'd with sun. 

And never was Eve of the Garden 

Or Mary the Maid 
More pure than you as you stood there 

Bold, yet afraid. 

And the sleeping birds woke, trembling, 
And the folded flowers were aware, 

And my senses were faint with the fragrant 
Gold of your hair. 
14 



And our lips found ways of speaking 

What words cannot say, 
Till a hundred nests gave music, 

And the East was gray. 



15 



2L0^e ^vinmp'^unt 



THE HOUR OF FIRE 

OWAS it you that waited in the dawn, 
Or Fate, or Flame, or Splendor of De- 
spair? 
Faint with the memory of your wind-blown 
hair, 
I rose — was borne to meet you, Passion's pawn 
Moved by The Hand! And up the terraced 
lawn, 
(To my impatience such an endless stair), 
Climbed past the oaks and furtive shrubbery, 
where 
You lay, pale, startled, panting hke a fawn! 
How wealthy, whoso holds for treasure one 

Such ravishing moment at a kingdom's cost! 
Though peace were forfeit, tho' my heart, un- 
done. 
Should pay the price with infinite years of 
frost, 
Again I'd fly, a meteor tow'rd the Sun, 

And on your burning breast and lips be lost! 

God ! once again I live that hour of hours, — 
Past the park gates and past the sleeping 
hounds, 

16 



ISLoiJt ^vinmpfiunt 



The gardener's lodge that overlooks the 
grounds, 
With the dark windows buried deep in flow'rs, 
The hedgerow and the woods, where shade de- 
vours 

Discovery, till at last the only sounds 

That stab the quiet with delicious wounds 
Are two loud hearts which passion overpowers ! 
And on your mouth — red as the new-ris'n sun 

That flushed the hills which peered between 
the trees — 
I tasted death and life together — one 

Supremest marriage at joy's height of these 
Old, timeless lovers ; till the Dawn was done, 

And Day, o'erhead, broke into golden seas ! 

And now! nay, but I have no song for Now, 
Then life was mine — now am I grown 

Death's slave, 
Whom he lets live for pastime; breeze and 
wave 
Run as of old, and younger hands must plough. 
Sow, reap, and spend ; yea, on new lips and 
brow 
Youth rains new kisses, but the Hand that 

dravc 
The arrow thro' my heart, when in her grave 
17 



Hobe ^vinvxpfinnt 



I buried Love, is heavy. Spare me, Thou ! 
Nay! spare me not! give me whate'er Thou 
hast 
In Thy black storehouse of new griefs; the 
gold 
Of one rich memory, hoarded to the last. 

Thou couldst not take, tho' I should thrice 
grow old! 
Mine the eternity which is the Past, 

Through all eternities that are foretold! 



18 



aoUe Zvimnpijant 



AT DAWN 

BEAUTIFUL as the feet of Atalanta, 
Delicate as the hand of Aphrodite, 
Comes the dawn across the eastern hilltops. 

Golden as the fleece that launch'd the Argo, 
Prouder than great Nineveh on the Tigris, 
Enters 'neath these boughs the wealth of morn- 
ing. 

Night recedes, the lingering waves of darkness 
Lift — forsake these heights ; the tide that 

drown'd us 
Ebbs into the dawn's flush'd indolent languor. 

Let us rise, O love, and tow'rd the city 
Take our way, — within our eyes the silence 
Of a memory holier than the daybreak. 

Thro' the long, gray streets, just wash'd with 

sunrise. 
Downward thro' the waking roar of traffic, — 
Onward, onward thro' the world forever! 
19 



Hotie SriumiJiiant 



HER LIPS 

ALL of the joy in a wild bird's nest, 
All that God hid in a violet's breast, 
All the soft wonder of twilight and star, 
All that white caravans bring from afar. 
All the wealth captured by Spain's fierce 

ships — 
All became mine at the touch of her lips ! 



20 



aotoe Kvixtmpfiunt 



CREATION 

A FLASH of Will and a word of Power — 
Your body rose like a softy white flower; 
Winds went North and winds went South — 
There grew the mystery of your mouth; 
Night leaned over her golden bars — 
Your hair blew free like a cloud of stars; 
Dreams and a song and a sunrise sea — 
Your eyes looked out from the Dawn at me! 



21 



aotje JSCriuiufli^ant 



A SONG OF CONTENT 

HOW many million stars must shine 
Which only God can see ! — 
Yet in the sky His hand has hung 
Ten thousand stars for me! 

How many blossoms bloom and fade 
Which only God can know ! — 

Yet here's my field of buttercups, 
And here my daisies blow. 

How many wing-paths through the blue 
Lure swallows up and down ■ — 

Yet here's my little garden walk, 
And yon's the road to town! 

How many a treacherous voice has wooed 

Unhappy feet to roam — 
Yet God has taught my willing ear 

The sounds of love and home! 

How many lips have kiss'd and clung 
Since Eve was Adam's bride ! — 

But God has given me you, dear girl, 
And I am satisfied! 
22 



aoije 2rrlumpt)ant 



THE BALLAD OF EDEN 



OTHE birds were loud in Eden, 
Li Eden, in Eden, 
They were mad with mirth in Eden 

So fair; 
O their wings were swift as flames. 
Sweet and curious were their names. 
And their songs were wild as passion, 
pure as prayer! 

n. 

There were rainy days in Eden, 

In Eden, in Eden, 
Days of sun and shower in Eden 

So fair! 
Carpets must be soft as floss. 
Woven of grass and woven of moss. 
Where the foot of man and foot of maid 

are bare! 

in. 

They were bravely clad in Eden, 
In Eden, in Eden, 
^3 



Hotie Evinmpffnnt 



O the fashions throve in Eden 

So fair! 
Cloth-o'-leaves from God's own vines, 
Thread and needles from the pines, 
And the wind's own way of doing up the 

hair! 

IV. 

O but Man was strong in Eden, 

In Eden, in Eden, 
Like a happy god in Eden, 

So fair, 
And the Woman's blood was red. 
All her tears were still unshed. 
And her lips, with soft defiance, laughed 

at care. 

V. 

O the world still seems an Eden, 

An Eden, an Eden, 
O the w^orld is always Eden 

So fair; 
Though the serpent's glittering eyes 
Have a cleverer disguise. 
While you're walking through the orchard, 

have no care! 

24. 



aoije Evinmp^nnt 



VI. 

Still for us the earth is Eden, 

Is Eden, is Eden, 
Still our Earth, dear love, is Eden 

So fair, — 
And we taste all fruits that be, 
Even from the Knowledge Tree, 
Though its branches have been grafted 

with Despair! 

VII. 

O though life wax old in Eden, 

In Eden, in Eden, 
Love is still the lord of Eden 

So fair; 
All the blossoming is for us. 
And our happy creed runs thus: 
Failure visits only those who fail to dare! 

vm. 

So we fear no sword in Eden, 

In Eden, in Eden : — 
Who shall drive us from our Eden 

So fair! 
Is there built a gate — a wall ? 
At a lover's kiss they fall. 
If we love, new Edens wait us everywhere. 
25 



ILo^it ^viumpf^nnt 



TO A DISCOVERER 

LONG was my spirit like some lonely reef 
In gray, unvisited oceans, where the Sea, 
Relentless, drove its salt waves over me, 
A cold, monotonous surf of unbelief; 
But ere I hardened into hopeless grief. 

Thou camest, bringing love, faith, sympathy ; 
I found myself and God in finding thee. 
And my long dream of doubt looked void and 

brief. 
Then was my soul, with her new glory dazed. 
Like that green island among tropic seas 
When the strange sail approached the won- 
dering shore, 
And startled eyes beheld the Cross upraised, 
While the great Spaniard sank upon his 
knees, 
And the Te Deum shook San Salvador! 



26 



aotje STtfumiJtjant 



LOVE'S AWAKENING 

WHEN Memory was a desert 
And Life a dungeon wall, 
When Hope became a harlot 

That lured me to my fall, 
When June had lost its old perfume 

And Poetry its glow — 
There flashed a sense of wings and bloom ! 

Of joys that stir and grow! 
The thorns became a chaplet 

Upon my bleeding brow, — 
Night fled ; the world was sunrise ! — 

dearest, it was thou! 

My heart was lost to feeling, 

1 could not weep nor smile, 
I had no joy of music, — 

O 'twas a weary while ! 
I lived within a sodden trance 

That knew nor faith nor fears. 
My soul was bhnd as sightless Chance, 

A ghost that mocked the years ; 
When lo! a gentle whisper, 

A kiss upon my brow! 



HoiJt SCtitttniitjatit 



The arms of love were round mel — 
O dearest I it was thou. 

And though 'tis still a marvel — 

The rapture and the wings, 
My heart has learned the wonder 

Of love that serves and sings, 
Now I can welcome June again 

And watch her roses blow. 
Once more I find the world of men 

A conflict, not a show. 
From worse than death awakened. 

Whence came the spell and how? 
God's angel must have touched me — 

Nay, darling, it was thoul 



28 



aobt Srittiniiljant 



LOVE'S FULFILMENT 

ALL the passion of the skies 
Where the moons of August hang, 
I have read within thine eyes. 

All that sage or poet guess'd, 

Sinai spake or Stratford sang, 
I have learn'd upon thy breast. 

All the wander-thirst of ships, 

Wave's wild kiss and tempest's fang, 
I have tasted on thy lips. 

Now the sting and storm are past, 

(Youth's mad voices — how they rang !), - 
Comes the calmer bliss at last! 

Yea, the carnal grows divine 

Since our souls together sprang. 
And my lost heart flow'd in thine ! 

Like the Gulf Stream in the sea. 

Leagues below the pulse and pang. 
Broods my spirit, drown'd in thee! 



29 



aoiie SCtitttnjjJiant 



THE LAST WORD 

WHEN I have folded up this tent 
And laid the soiled thing by, 
I shall go forth 'neath different stars, 
Under an unknown sky. 

And yet whatever house I find 

Beneath the grass or snow 
Will ne'er be tenantless of love 

Or lack the face I know. 

O lips — w ild roses wet with rain ! 
Blown hair of drifted brown ! 

passionate eyes ! O panting heart — 
When in that colder town 

1 lie, the one inhabitant, 

My hands across my breast, 
How warm through all eternity 
The summer of my rest ! 

To each frail root beneath the ground 
That thrusts its flower above, 

I shall impart a fiercer sap — 
I who have known your love! 
30 



HoUe STr turn)!)) ant 



And growing things will lean to me 
To learn what love hath won, 

Till I shall whisper to the dust 
That secret of the Sun. 

Yea, though my spirit never wake 
To hear the voice I knew, 

Even an endless sleep would be 
Stirred by the dreams of You! 



31 



ilotjt ^viumpftunt 



LOVE'S PRICE 

WHEN I look for roses, 
Bittersweet and rue! 
Can it be that this is love ? — 
This my dream come true? 
Love I thought would bring me 

Only perfect joy, — 
That was twelve long months ago 
When I was a boy. 

a twelvemonth's longing! 

O a twelvemonth's pain ! — 
Sunshine only when the clouds 

Lift above the rain ! 
Doubt that dreads the morrow, 

Care, before unguess'd, — 
Then a shaft of golden joy 

Quivering in my breast! 

Yet I still press forward. 
Scornful of my wound, 

1 will love while years shall last 
And the earth goes 'round! 

Should a man turn craven, 
Challenged by Desire? 
32 



aotie 8Ct(ttmiJijant 



Nay, love blesses while it bums 
Let me face the fire! 

Lads who lust for pleasure, 

Long for ease and mirth, 
I no longer walk with you 

Down a flow'r-clad earth; 
Love's white feet allure me 

Up a steeper way. 
Though I bleed I follow Her 

Where the peaks are gray ! 



33 



ILcibt ©titttttflljatit 



JOY AND SACRIFICE 

1GAVE you all that I had, 
And the giving made me glad ; 
So great was my love the while, 
I asked neither thanks nor smile. 

If you only would let me pour 
My service before your door, 
My worship around your feet. 
The days and the nights were sweet. 

But what an end is this ! 
Your lips that I may not kiss 
At last, with a frown, command 
I lay no gifts in your hand. 

Yet, dearest, before we part 
Let me speak this word from my heart 
I have striven and lost, and yet 
I hold no thought of regret. 

I have owned life's costliest thing; 
Though I have drunk from a spring 
Where my thirst could never slake, 
I have given up all for your sake 
34 



tLo\}t Zvinntp'^unt 



And loved you purely and well 
With a peace I can never tell, 
And I breathe toward Heav'n this word 
Bless Thou my Love, O Lord 1 

My Love who never gave 

The joy that starved hearts crave, 

Yet pays me a richer price 

For service and sacrifice. 

She has taught me that life can bring 
No better and nobler thing 
Than a spirit that gives and gives ; 
O bless my Love while she lives ! 



35 



aoijt Zvinmp'^unt 



THE SURVIVOR 

WHEN the last day is ended, 
And the nights are through ; 
W^hen the last sun is buried 
In its grave of blue; 

When the stars are snufFed like candles, 
And the seas no longer fret; 

When the winds unlearn their cunning. 
And the storms forget; 

When the last lip is palsied. 

And the last prayer said ; 
Love shall reign immortal 

While the worlds lie dead! 



36 



II. 



"Love which is the essence of God." 

— Emerson. 



97 



fio\)t ts:vixmxpftmxt 



THE LARGER VIEW 

IN buds upon some Aaron's rod 
The childlike ancient saw his God; 
Less credulous, more believing, we 
Read in the grass — Divinity. 

From Horeb's bush the Presence spoke 
To earlier faiths and simpler folk ; 
But now each bush that sweeps our fence 
Flames with the awful Immanence ! 

To old Zacchajus in his tree 

What mattered leaves and botany ? 

His sycamore was but a seat 

Whence he could watch that hallowed street. 

But now to us each elm and pine 
Is vibrant with the Voice divine. 
Not only from but in the bough 
Our larger creed beholds Him now. 

To the true faith, bark, sap and stem 
Are wonderful as Bethlehem ; 
No hill nor brook nor field nor herd 
But mangers the Incarnate Word ! 

39 



ILoije Zvinmpifant 



Far be it from our lips to cast 
Contempt upon the holy past — 
Whate'er the Finger writes we scan 
In Sinai, prophecies, or man. 

Again we touch the heahng hem 

In Nazareth or Jerusalem; 

We trace again those faultless years ; 

The cross commands our wondering tears. 

Yet if to us the Spirit writes 
On Morning's manuscript and Night's, 
In gospels of the growing grain, 
Epistles of the pond and plain. 

In stars, in atoms, as they roll, 
Each tireless round its occult pole. 
In wing and worm and fin and fleece, 
In the wise soil's surpassing peace, — 

Thrice ingrate he whose only look 
Is backward focussed on the Book, 
Neglectful what the Presence saith, 
Though He be near as blood and breath ! 

The only atheist is one 
Who hears no Voice in wind or sun. 
Believer in some primal curse, 
Deaf in God's loving universe ! 

40 



JSLoi^t srriumjJijant 



VERITAS 

AH, no more the lyre of deep-brow'd Homer 
Drops like golden rain in joy of battle 
Those slow spondees and those headlong dac- 
tyls — 
Sounding lines, and every line a lyric! 

Ah, no more the harp of dreaming David — 
On whose eye of faith there flash'd the Vision, 
From his own pure heart pro j ected skyward — 
Spills its splendid ecstasy of worship. 

Shall we then hark back to sage and shepherd. 
Put our lips to Ihads and Psalters, 
Quaffing mighty wines of war and worship. 
Wild and wistful with forgotten questions. 
Satisfied with draughts that leave us thirsting? 

Nay, the rather face the future boldly. 
Let who will look back, be ours to-morrow ! 
Psalms for those who like, for us truth only, 
That new Science which is Faith and Worship, 
That old Worship which still lives transfigured : 
God in all things — force and mind and matter. 
Immanent, immutable, immortal! 
41 



ILobt 8[;tUunp]^ant 



DIRECTIONS TO A TRAVELLER 



H 



OW far must I follow this dusty way ? " 
Till the hills grow faint in the twilight 
gray. 



" Must I keep the road till it drops from 

sight?" 
At the line of the sky is a path to the right. 

" And what is the name of the cross-road 

there?" 
The name on the finger-post is Care. 

" And must I travel that new path far? " 
Till the West is bright with the Evening Star. 

" And how many miles must I journey then? " 
Till you reach the Tavern of All Good Men. 

" And how many roofs shall I have to pass ? " 
But one: that Hostelry, thatched with grass. 

" And whither thence at the dawn of day ? " 
The Host, when He wakes you, will point the 
way. 

42 



aoUt SCtnumpijant 



THE TWOFOLD PRAYER 

WHEN grass is green and tall, lad, 
When hills are white with sheep, 
When whetstones ring against the scythe, 

And the sauntering brook's asleep ; 
When trees are loud with flutter and song 

And not a bough is sad. 
When skies are smiling in God's face. 

And even man is glad ; 
When June flees down her laughing lanes 

As fast as foot can fall. 
The castles that our fancies build 

Are fair as Ilion's wall ; 

Yet this must be the boon, lad, 
To ask the jealous years: 
" Oh, if ye may, bring laughter, 
And, if ye must, bring tears." 

For soon the grass shall wither, lad. 

And winter come with snow. 
Soon other hands shall hold the shear, 

And other arms shall mow, 
43 



aoijt STrfmnjii^ant 



Soon Helen's face must yield its grace, 

And youth must lose its Troy, 
For love unlearns its pleasure, lad. 

And June forgets her joy. 
Oh, life must give this ignorant heart 

The penance that it needs ! — 
How long a rosary seem our days 

When sorrow counts the beads! 

Yes, this shall be the prayer, lad, 
We ask the coming years : 
^' Oh, if ye may, bring laughter, 
And, if ye must, bring tears." 



44 



aotoe ^vixtmpftani 



GOLGOTHA 

OUR crosses are hewn from different trees, 
But we all must have our Calvaries ; 
We may climb the height from a different side, 
But we each go up to be crucified ; 
As we scale the steep, another may share 
The dreadful load that our shoulders bear, 
But the costhest sorrow is all our own — 
For on the summit we bleed alone. 



45 



iiot^t ^vinmpftnnt 



THE NURSE 

(" Deathy the nurse of all'^) 

EVENING now has come with shadows, 
Colder grows the air, 
Look ! the Sun takes down his pictures 
Till his walls are bare. 

She we fear, the icy-bosomed. 

With her cold, kind face. 
Bending over, like a mother. 

Draws to her embrace. 

Crooning, " Night has come, and darkness, 

Dear ones, ye are tired, 
I have brought you only slumber — 

I, the Undesired. 

" Ye shall sleep in dreamless quiet 
Where no griefs can pass, 
Tears will never wet your eyelids 
Underneath the grass. 

" If ye miss the hands of loved ones 
Ye have press'd so oft, 

46 



Ho tie Zximn»i)unt 



Lo, the roots of flowers have fingers 
That are cool and soft ! " 

Good night! we must rise and follow 

Her who fares before, — 
How the playthings strew the pathway 

To that chamber-door! 

Nurse of all, thou unforgetful! 

Gentle watch-care take, 
Till, resigned to arms more loving, 

All the children wake! 



47 



Hotic a^vlmnp^ant 



N 



LAUS MORTIS 

AY, why should I fear Death, 

Who gives us Hfe, and in exchange takes 
breath ? 



He is hke cordial Spring 
That lifts above the soil each buried thing; — 

Like Autumn, kind and brief — 
The frost that chills the branches, frees the 
leaf ; — 

Like Winter's stormy hours 
That spread their fleece of snow to save the 
flowers ; — 

The lordliest of all things — 
Life lends us only feet. Death gives us wings ! 

Fearing no covert thrust. 
Let me walk onward, armed with valiant trust, 

Dreading no unseen knife. 
Across Death's threshold step from life to life! 
48 



aoiie ^viumpttant 



O all ye frightened folk, 
Whether ye wear a crown or bear a yoke, 

Laid in one equal bed, 
When once your coverlet of grass is spread, 

What daybreak need you fear? 
The love will rule you there which guides you 
here! 

Where Life, the Sower, stands. 
Scattering the ages from his swinging hands, 

Thou waitest. Reaper lone, 
Until the multitudinous grain hath grown. 

Scythe-bearer, when thy blade 
Harvests my flesh, let me be unafraid ! 

God's husbandman thou art ! — 
In His unwithering sheaves, O bind my heart! 



49 



aoiie SvUimjiijant 



A PRAYER 

\T mETHER my place be Thine abode 

V V above, 

Or earth, this school of love, 
Not mine the errand to the court of kings. 

But quiet, homely things — 
Not mine the mission to the farthest sun, 

But some more childlike one; 
I do not ask a seat at Thy right hand, — 

Nay, Father, bid me stand. 



50 



%o\}t iJCrfumjiiiant 



BIRTH 

C"^ OD thought : — 
J A million blazing worlds were wrought ! 

God will'd: — . 

Earth rose, while all Creation thrill'd! 

God spoke : — 

And in The Garden love awoke! 

God smiled : — 

Lo, in the mother's arms, a child! 



51 



3Loi}t 2Ctftttnjii)ant 



THE GOLDEN DOOR 

WHEN I have won to the Golden Door, 
Who will open to me? 
" They who have had on this little earth 
Alms or a smile from thee." 

When I have won to the Golden Door, 

What will be writ thereon? 
" This is the gate of the Evermore, 

The goal of the Ever gone." 

When I have won to the Golden Door, 

What shall I see beyond? 
" Work for the lusty, beds for the tired, 

Love for lips that are fond." 

When I have won to the Golden Door, 

What will the password be? 
" Love is the password, love is the toll, 

Love is the golden key." 



52 



JLo\}t ^vinmpl^nnt 



CREDO 

I KNOW no sin except the lack of love, 
I recognize the victory in defeat ; 
No gulf divides life here from life above, 
I spell perfection in the incomplete. 

A foe to dogma, still I hold a creed, 

For I believe that all life brings is good, 

That sharing bread and wine with men who need 
Is the new sacrament of brotherhood. 

I know the way we tread is rough and long. 
And yet to toil and bleed am nothing loth, 

And thus I journey homeward with a song. 
Since in the very struggle lies my growth. 

And when I reach that last green hostelry 

Whence none have ever yet been turned away. 

The slumber will be sound which falls on me, 
Till dawns that longer, new, divine To-day. 

Joy! only joy! for Love is there and here — 
Peace, only peace ! though desperate my dis- 
tress ; 

I find no f oeman in the road but Fear — 
To doubt is failure, and to dare, success ! 

53 



lloiJir ^vlnmpt^mii 



LOVE IMMORTAL 

CHURCHES, nay, I count you vain, 
Lifting high a gloomy spire, 
Like some frozen form of pain 

Aching up to meet desire ; 
Standing from God's poor apart — 
Granite walls and granite heart! 

Sects, ye have your day, and die, 
Eddies in the stream of truth, — 

The great current, sweeping by, 

Leaves you swirled in shapes uncouth, 

Bom to writhe, and ghnt, and woo — 

Broken mirrors of the Blue. 

Creeds ! — O captured heavenly bird, 
Fluttering heart and folded wing! 

Shall ye see those pinions stirred? 
Can your caged Creation sing? 

Will ye herald as your prize 

What was bred to soar the skLes? 

Rites and pomp, what part have ye 
In the service of the heart? 

54 



aoiie StiiimflJjcint 



Rituals are but mummery, 

Faith's white flame is snuffed by art; 
Candles be but wick and wax, 
Alms have grown the temple-tax. 

Yet the East is red with dawn, 

Like a cross where One hath bled! 

And upon that splendor drawn — 
Gentle eyes and arms outspread — 

See that figure stretched above ! 

As God lives ! its name is Love ! 

Love that lights the fireless brands, 
Love that cares for world and wren. 

Bleeding from the broken hands — 

Crowned with thorns that conquer men ; 

Only Love's great eyes inspire 

Church, sect, creed to glow with fire. 

Yet our lips shall have no sneer 
For the spire, the mosque, the ark. 

Broken symbols shall be dear 

If they point us through the dark, — 

Laws and scripture served our youth 

Who have grown the sons of truth ! 



55 



S.obe ^vinm»fiunt 



BETHLEHEM MORN 

INTO the city of David rode 
A man and a girl to a mean abode, 
He the carpenter, staunch of limb, 
She the virgin espoused to him. 

And lo ! in the pastures white with sheep 
The flocks were stirring, aroused from sleep, 
While far from the hillsides, fresh with morn, 
The bleating of hungry lambs was borne ; 

And as through the warm air, moist with dew. 
Drifted the cry of each answering ewe, 
The woman flushed, with a sudden start. 
And pressed both hands beneath her heart. 

" Mary, why dost thou ride so ill ? " 
Mine eyes were turned to yonder hill, 

'' Mary, why dost thou start with fear ? " 
The promised day of the Lord is near! 



56 



aoUt Evimnpf^nnt 



THE WIDOW'S SON 

OHOW they welcomed him once more 
The wondering lads of Nain ! 
He stood before the widow's door 
Whom Death had robbed in vain ! 

And as he joined them in their sports, 
What must his heart have said — 

He who had lain within the courts 
Where sleep the fleshless dead! 

And she whose arms won back their all 

From the eternal years, 
Ah, God ! behind her cottage wall, 

What gratitude and tears! 

Now son and mother both are dust, 

With all the lads they knew. 
No prophet stayed Death's second thrust 

Beneath the Syrian blue. 

But still the gentle hand is strong 
Which touched the unquicken'd clay ; 

Wherever Sorrow's children throng 
The Nazarene walks to-day! 

57 



aoiJt JJTiiumiJljant 



SHEKINAH 

ARK that rode the Deluge wave 
Found on Ararat her grave, 
All her stalwart gopher-wood 
Rotted in that solitude: 

Ark that held the holy things, 
Shadow'd by the golden wings, 
Fallen into dust, is blown 
Round the hills where once it shone. 

Yet the Covenant is true, 
God hath kept His oath with you; 
In the humblest heart, behold 
Something costlier than gold ! — 
Hush ! within that quivering shrine 
Broods the Immanent Divine ! 



58 



aLoiie ^vixtmp^ant 



THE SEA OF FAITH 

HAVE you lifted anchor and hoisted sail? 
Does your ship stand out to sea? 
Have you scofF'd at peril and dared the gale 
Where the waves and the winds are free? 

Is safety a thought that you count disgrace ' 

When duty and danger call? 
Would you stand on the deck with a smile on 
your face 

And perish the first of all? 

Is your old sail salt with the frozen foam 

And gray as a sea-gull's wing? 
Do you never long for land and home 

When the great waves clutch and cling? 

O the Sea of Faith hath storms, God knows, 

And the haven is very far, 
But he is my brother-in-blood who goes 

With his eye on the polar star, 

With his hand on the canvas, his foot on the 
ropes, 
His heart beating loud in his breast, 
59 



aotie Zvlnmp^unt 



With dauntless courage and quenchless hopes 
And the old divine unrest! 

The swift keels chafe in the Harbor of Doubt, 
They were built for the glorious blue, 

Where the stout masts bend and the sailors 
shout, 
And the wave-drench'd compass is true ! 

Then here's my hand, O lad of my heart, 

O dauntless spirit and free! 
The tide is high ! They strain, they start ! — 

The ships of the infinite sea! 



60 



Eoiie ffitttttniifjant 



THE ANSWER 

"TV TAKE of my heart," I cried, "a lyre 
i,Vi whereon 

The wind of man's desire shall sweep some 
string 
Into immortal music; utterly gone 

My dearest hopes unless I gain this thing ; " 
Then the calm Voice : " Nay, son, thy prayer is 

wild, 
But thou mayest feed, for Me, an hungry 
child." 



" Give me to die in some supreme emprise, 
And, falling, shout, ' They flee, the field is 

ours ; ' 
When Stephen raised to Heav'n those angel 

eyes. 
The stones that crush'd his body seem'd like 

flowers ; 
A martyr's or a warrior's death be mine ! " 
" Nay, dreamer, thou must learn to serve, not 

shine." 

61 



aobr Evinmpftunt 



" Yea, let me serve ; be mine the holj wrath 
Which deals the heart of Vice its deadliest 
thrust, 
Better a thousand perils in my path 

Than such sad safety where the roads are 
dust;" 
" Nay, child, thy peril is thy restless will, — 
Thy task is patience ; suffer and be still ! " 

" O Infinite Love, I lean my heart on Thine ! 

The humblest task Thou hast my j oy shall be ! 
Behold, the sandiest pathways grow divine 

If so these leagues of desert lead toward 
Thee; 
Come joy or pain. Thy will not mine be done." 
" At last thy prayer is answered, O my son ! " 



62 



aoije Zvimnpiiiini 



A SIMPLE STORY 

SHE sewed the little caps and frocks, 
And bought the cradle-bed, 
Though I may die, he shall not want 
For anything," she said. 

One morn within her arms they laid 

The long-awaited guest — 
The mother lived, but, ah, the child 

Was cold upon her breast! 

And sadly in that careful drawer. 

With tiny clothes replete. 
They left the fair white things untouched. 

All save the winding-sheet — 

All save a little doll-like robe. 
Fetched forth with tears to be 

The silent stranger's only dress 
Until eternity. 



63 



aoUt JJTtttttniJi&ant 



HER TRANSPLANTED ROSE 

TO M. C. G. 

HE came to her in the early dawn, 
And Hved in her arms one day, 
But the httle baby soul was tired, 
It had fared such a long, long way. 

She thought it only an earthly flower, 
Though the sweetest ever blown. 

Nor guess'd how in that blossoming life 
Was an angel made her own. 

But a whisper grew at the lips of the world, 
The sun rode, hush'd and high. 

She look'd, and caught the eye of God 
As the sorrowing winds went by ; 

And her heart lay close to the Heart of All, 
While the morning held its breath. 

Ah me ! the messenger stole so near. 
And the name on his wings was Death! 

And in the silence the truth grew plain — 
How a finer soil than ours 
64 



Eotie Zvinmp^ant 



Is needed to ripen the fairest souls 
For the garden of heavenly tlowers. 

And the child, when the Summons came at dusk, 

Look'd up with its eyes of blue 
Straight into the vision, as though to say, 
" How long I have watched for you ! " 

Then fell back cold on its mother's breast — 
And she knew, though her eyes were dim, 

While this meant torturing grief for her. 
It was endless peace for him. 

And the flowers they sent to the lonely room 

Wither'd beside her bed. 
But her little immortal flower was safe ; — 

She smiled when they calPd it dead! 



65 



ii^^t Kxiumpl^nnt 



THE STEPS 

SEIZE your staff! beyond this height 
We shall find the Infinite Light! 
Gird your thigh! this sword shall hew 
Paths that reach the untroubled blue ! 
Though dark moiintains form the stair, 
It is ours to climb and dare ! 
Law, truth, love — the peaks are three : 
Sinai, Olives, Calvary! 



66 



aobr i!rriuin»i)emt 



ON THE PATH 

" /^H, the sea is so gray, 

V^y And the sky is so black; 

Thorns and briers choke the way, 

Must I die, or turn back ? " 

Underfoot is the trail. 
And the Goal is rwt far; 

On the sea is a sail. 
In the shy is a star! 



67 



Hoiie ©tttttniJiiant 



TO AN OAK 

OTIME - DEFIER ! standing near the 
way 
Where thousands pass who are but leaves to 

thee, 
Clinging to the frail bough, Humanity, 
And both alike earth-destined, thou and they, 
I look on thee with wonder, — let me stay 
Beneath thy stalwart shadow, till I see 
Clearly the vision thou wouldst bring to me: 
/ shall surmount defeat, survive decay! 
Thy soil is Earth, and mine is God; if I 

Could thrust my roots down with such faith 
as thine. 
What leaves and boughs of love would greet the 
sky. 
Their buried lips thirst-quench'd at springs 

divine. 
Yea, thy hale permanence were less than mine, 
I who, though slain by Death, can never die ! 



68 



Hoiyt SCtitttnjjJjant 



A CHALLENGE 

DEFEAT and I are strangers; though the 
scourge 
Of wild injustice, knotted with all wrongs, 
Writhe round my spirit, if I cannot smile. 
Then write me craven, say, " He met the test 
Sent to all souls, only to faint and fall, 
His courage grovels, let us call him slave ! " 
O rather, when the mad Hands through the 

dark. 
Unseen and self-provoked, shall lash my will. 
Let me the stauncher bare me to the blow, 
Rise, hide my hurt, suppress the groan, fold 

arms. 
Erect and scornful, though my back may bleed, 
Though flesh, nerve, sensibilities, cry out! 
Not otherwise Zenobia must have felt. 
Fettered with golden fetters, when she walked 
Behind Aurelian's chariot, still a queen! 
Not otherwise Napoleon, when he trod 
That abject island, where the very guards 
Felt him the master, though they bore the guns 
And he was weaponless, the man whose eye 
Could daunt Disaster and command the world. 
69 



aoije JETtlttWiii^ant 



Thus would I live and thus would die; I come 
God knows ! of a long Hneage of kings : — 
Burke, Cromwell, Luther, Paul, and Socrates, 
Emerson, Milton, Cranmer, Charlemagne, 
Columbus, Tolstoi, Lincoln, Augustine — 
The monarchs of the spirit in all times, 
Exalted thrones defiant of decay. 
Then hurl all thunderbolts upon my brow, 
Dash me, O life, with waves of salt and blood. 
Empty thy quiver, Sorrow, in my breast. 
Ye cannot, O ye Powers, compel my soul, 
For, rob me as ye will, three things are left 
Which make your fury impotent and vain: 
That pride in self that lifts me from the worm, 
These sympathies that join me to my kind. 
This Higher Hope that hands me on to God, 
And armors me in immortality ! 



70 



2lotie S^viuintiliant 



WHAT IS HEAVEN? 

I HEARD a preacher talk of Heaven, a land 
Reserved for him and his, the Lord's elect ; 
He threatened vengeance with a clench'd right 
hand 
On doubters of the dogmas of liis sect. 

" One shall be taken and the other left ; 

What widow knows, wild with the parting 
kiss, 
But God may choose that she remain bereft, 

Divorced by Hell's impassable abyss? 

" A mother will not meet her child when Death 
Disjoins them, if his soul be unredeemed, 

These loves of earth are fugitive as breath 

And have no weight with God." Thus he 
blasphemed. 

Merely a boy, as I beheld the sky 

Through the church windows, I grew sick 
with fear, 
As fatherless as Hagar's child felt I, 

Beggared of hope and naked of all cheer. 
71 



Hotje Zvinmpt)uni 



I left the barren room, while still the flock 

Were worshipping their God, or thought they 
were, — 

" Joy ! " smiled the flowers, " Peace ! " sang each 
patient rock, 

*' Love ! " shouted forth each wild bird-chor- 
ister. 

And happy children raced along a brook. 

And matched with innocent boasts their rival 
speed ; 

But service now was out, — I saw rebuke 
In faces blackened by a loveless creed. 

Then flashed God's truth! and from that day 
the lies 
Framed by the creeds of men, which mock our 
earth, 
Burlesque the sun and travesty the skies, 
I value only at their worthless worth. 

Heaven ? What is Heaven ! Escape from burn- 
ing coals, 
Or simply love? Well, one thing it is never: 
An aristocracy of virtuous souls 

Where the self-righteous sun themselves for- 
ever ! 

72 



Hobe STrfumpJiant 



To think that Love's creator rashly hurled 
To outer darkness such a masterpiece ! — 

Love — the best gift in this or any world, 
Made perfect, to be shattered in caprice. 

A pagan, bowing down to sea or sun 
Or harmless idol on his cabin shelf, 

Is nearer Truth than you whose God is one 
Less good and merciful than you yourself. 

If God is God, and if His name be Love, 
Can He elect or damn like some mad Fate? 

Far better say no life exists above 

Than bend the knee to worship infinite Hate ! 

Love must survive, a thing of all delight. 

In this fair Heaven between the grass and 
blue 
And in what Heavens may lie beyond our 
sight, — 
But who elects it.? is it God, or you? 



73 



aoiit SCrimniJijant 



OUT OF THE DEPTHS 

TORN upon Thy wheel, 
Foul'd with blood and dust, 
Still my heart can feel. 
Still trust ; 

Still my lips can urge, 
" Heal me with Thy sword, 
Cleanse me with Thy scourge, 
Lord, Lord ! " 

Though a bleeding clod, 

Faint with thirst and pain. 

Still my hopes, dear God, 
Remain ; 

Yea, and more than hope : 
Faith! a prayer! a wing! 

Even on Calvary's slope, 
I sing! 



74. 



%oi}t J!txinm»^ani 



O TROUBLED OVER MANY THINGS 

O TROUBLED over many things, 
Choose thou the better part, — 
Service unconscious of itself 
And childlikeness of heart. 

Why breathe Earth's heavy atmosphere, 

Forgetful one can fly, 
When the high zenith. Infinite Love, 

Allures us to the sky? 

The virtues hide their vanquish'd fires 

Within that whiter flame. 
Till conscience grows irrelevant 

And duty but a name ! 



76 



III. 

"Love coveretli all sins." 

— Proverbs x. 12. 

Love scarce is love that never knows 
The sweetness of forgiving." 

— Whittier. 



77 



Hoiic 8Ct(ttmjji()ant 



THE GLASS 

TO the Great Mirror toddled the wee child, 
And viewed his puzzled eyes there, won- 
der-wild : 
"Who are you, baby? Are you me? Say 

true ! " 
He scarce could guess, t)ut all too soon he knew ! 

To the Great INIirror strode the man mature, 
Passion and guilt defaced a brow once pure; 
He groaned, " Is that myself? Thou shade of 

hell. 
Would God thou couldst deceive! I know thee 

well ! " 



79 



aoije SCtrtttwiiiiant 



SIN'S FOLIAGE 

DO you ask why this woman has always a 
shadow on her face? 

In her girlhood she planted in virgin soil a 
sweet sin, 

And she looked only for joy from the shoots, 
tender and fresh. 

But when years passed, and Memory had wat- 
ered it. 

And Remorse had digged about and dunged it, 

And Conscience, the owl, had hooted from its 
branches night and day. 

She learned that she had planted the seeds 
thereof in her own soul, and that whilst 
the soil grew thinner the roots had waxed 
longer and the branches mightier. 

And now she sits where the sunlight can never 
enter, in the dense shadow of the boughs. 

And strives to stay her hunger with their fruit. 



80 



aotje ©tittmiJJjaut 



ONE WOMAN 

THE souls of Strauss and Schubert 
Swept through the viohns, 
But what cared she who danced apart — 
She, alone with her sins ! 

For under the roses and diamonds, 
And back of the lips that smiled, 

Sat Memory holding The Secret, 
As a mother holds her child! 



81 



2Lo4)e s:iiunT|iJjant 



BETRAYED 

Tyf^HOSO has lived to love and bless, 
yi^ Given nny for nay and yes for yes. 
Will find my fable foolishness. 

Albeit he had thought to woo her, 
When he met happiness he drew her 
Apart from all men's sight, and slew her. 

Yet were his hands and conscience clean ; 

Some monstrous Folly rose unseen 

To teach him crimes he could not mean. 

His lips keep up a brave disguise, 

But one can read within his eyes 

Such thoughts as these, beneath all lies: 

" Only to think that, poised above 
A bosom softer than a dove. 
My hand should stab the heart I love! 

" One fierce caress, one playful blow — 
Her life-blood stained her breast of snow ; 
Yet, O m}'^ God, how could I know ! " 
82 



aotiir StUnnpljant 



Whoso has falVn from Heav'n to Hell, 
In one mad moment's fateful spell, — 
For you, for you, this parable! 



1Loi}t ^vinmpttunt 



TO THE MOON 

SISTER, what Death which finds no god to 
quicken 
Infects that sky where thou w^ast set of 
old? — 
For now thou hest, leper-white and stricken, 
With shrunken breasts and cold. 



How came the passionate fires of love to lan- 
guish. 
Sucked from the fierce veins of thy sire, the 
Sun? 
O wrinkle-browed and barren, whence thine an- 
guish ? 
Whisper it, hapless one! 

Art thou Heaven's broken heart? When Earth 
beneath thee 
Forsook love's orbit, innocent and fair. 
And followed paths of sin, did Fate bequeath 
thee 
The task of watching there ? — 
84 



aotie ^vinmp'^ant 



Watching with sunken eyes and pallid features 
And horror-smitten face as white as snow 

This home of profligate and sorrowing crea- 
tures 
That mocks thee from below? 



85 



ILobt JKtdtmjii^ant 



LOST 

NIGHT scattered gold-dust in the eyes of 
Earth, 
My heart was blinded by the excess of stars, 
As, filled with youth and joy, I kept the Way. 

The solitary and unweaponed Sun 

Slew all the hosts of darkness with a smile. 

And it was Dawn. And still I kept the Way. 

The Winds, those hounds that only God can 

leash, 
Bayed on my track, and made the morning wild 
With loud confusion, but I kept the Way. 

The hours climbed high. Peace, where the 

Zenith broods. 
Fell, a blue feather from the wings of Heav'n: 
Lo! it was Noon. And still I kept the Way. 

At length one met me as my footsteps 

flagged, — 
Within her eyes oblivion, on her lips 
Delirious dreams — and I forgot the Way. 

86 



aotJt STriumpfiant 



And still we wander — who knows whitherward ! 
Onr sandals torn, in either face despair, 
Passion burnt out — God ! I have lost the Way. 

O for that dusty trail, the stones, the thorns ! 
These meadow flowers they burn me like hell's 

flame. 
Harlot, I hate thee ! O the Way ! the Way ! 
Before I die, one gHmpse ! the Way ! the Way ! 



87 



Hobt Exiumptiunt 



THE THREE 

MARY of Nazareth, loving and kind, 
The mission of Him she bore divined 
Vaguely and dim, with a wondering mind. 

Mary of Bethany, gentle and fair, 

Gave Him what cheer her home could spare, 

And smiled with the peace of quiet prayer. 

Soiled with the dust of the gazing street, 
Stealing in where He sat at meat, 
Mary the Magdalen kissed His feet. 

Mary the virgin marvel'd with fear, 
Mary the listener lent Him her ear. 
But Mary the prodigal faltered near, — 

Tho' wonder and loathing filled the place. 
And Simon counted her touch disgrace, 
She bent o'er the Master her tear-stain'd 
face, — 

And her wealth of warm, dark hair, unbound, 
About His feet she wound and wound — 
Her sobbing was the only sound. 
88 



aotoe JETrfumjJijant 



Mary the hostess made Him her guest, 
He had lain on Mary the Mother's breast, 
But the Magdalen's gift was costliest: 

She brought her past, its bliss and shame, 
Strange sins, wild memories fierce as flame — 
And in her tears was wash'd from blame ! 

One sat with patient joy at His side, 

One stood by the Roman cross where He died. 

One gave herself and her broken pride. 



89 



aotit STriunijii^ant 



DISCORD 

BLUE eyes blurr'd with weeping, 
How ye hurt the grace 
Of untroubled twihghts, 
Night's unwrinkled face! 

Still the boughs of April 
Greet their annual guests, 

Still the new-born singers 
Stir a thousand nests. 

Brooks and fields and pastures 

Always seem so glad ! — 
Oh, how strange that only 

You and I are sad! 

Oh, how strange that discord 

Is a human thing. 
That God's orchestra can play. 

With one broken string ! 

Though the other instruments — 
Joined in faultless tune — 

Render perfect symphonies 
— Winter, Stars, and June, 
90 



aoUt Zvixim9f)^nt 



InhaiTnonious music 
From this human Ijre, 

Smites the ear of angels 
And condemns the choir. 

Master of the players, 
In whose smile is fame, 

Spoilt is all our music — 
Hearken to our shame ! — 

If Thou canst, these broken 
Harps again employ; 

Tune them to Thy glory 
In the key of joy ! 

Then shall pass from memory 

This discordant din 
Which disturbs Creation — 

Sorrow, Care, and Sin. 

Then shall rise forever 

From the cloud and clod 
Love's majestic chorus: — 
"We rejoice, O God!" 



91 



Hoiir ^vinmpftunt 



THE DISCIPLINE OF FAILURE 

HERE is what the years at last have taught 
me, 
This the creed that life, not man, has fash- 
ioned : — 
Suffering wrought by guilt is never final — 
Retribution is but reclamation, 
Punishment remedial, self -redemptive. 
Sin the scourge wherewith Love drives us sun- 
ward. 
And remorse no drowning sea of anguish. 
But the tear-bath whence we rise unsullied. 
Like a child we learn to walk by stumbling — 
Learn to shun the flame by tortured fingers; 
Though the scars may bum our flesh and spirit 
Through Earth's little years, dust-bom, grave- 
destined, 
God has other worlds, and life is timeless ; 
We shall find the deepest wounds self-healing. 
When Love's surgery makes plain its purpose! 
Thus believing, I have come to love you, 
All who climb with me from self to freedom. 
Let me kiss thy lips, O fallen brother! 
Let my arms enfold thee, fallen sister! 
92 



JLotJt Zvinmpftunt 



Let me trust and love you back to honor, 
Let me draw you to the Great Forgiveness, — 
Not as one above who stoops to save you, 
Not as one who stands aside with counsel. 
Nay, as he who says, " I, too, was wounded 
With the stones, the briers — I, too, was poi- 
soned 
With the flowers that sting, but now, arisen, 
I am struggling up the path beside you; 
Rise! and let us face these heights together." 



Eobt 2Cr(ttin»iiant 



IN A FAE COUNTRY 

WHEN God made the last of his crea- 
tures, 
Man, who should reigii. 
He gave him the strong, white body. 
And the reasoning brain, 

A voice which could mould its language 

To a silver tone, 
A love that was more than passion — 

A will like His own ! 

But the years flowed by — dark waters 

Troubled with rain. 
Till a sullied stream confronted 

The sky's disdain, — 

And man, w^ith the wants immortal 

And the visions brief. 
Grew fain of the terrible pleasures 

That are worse than grief, 

And there throve such curious vices 
For his princely mirth, 
94 



ZLoiie Zvinmpi)ani 



That He who had shapen this creature 
From the sands of earth 

Looked down on a brain that faltered, 

A song that was dumb, 
On beds of lust and of sickness, 

On brothel and slum. 

But think ye the Artist repented? 

Or cast to the void 
The work He found good in the making, 

As it lay, self -destroyed ? 

Nay, the infinite Workman ponder'd, 

" From him We have wrought 
There is only one gift withholdcn 
Ere he reach to Our thought. 

" If his heart lack Grace, it is only 
A lair for pride; 
He must kneel at Our feet for a season, 
Ere he reign at Our side. 

" We will give him great prodigal cities — 
Tyre, Babylon, Rome, — 
He shall cat of their husks till he famish, 
And his feet turn home! 
95 



aotJt SCriutnjiiiant 



" He must pray, he must serve, he must suffer. 
Till, clean of his stain, 
He Is humble and meet for Our presence — 
Made perfect through pain." 

And man hears the call of his Father, 

And dares to rejoice; 
Even now, though Earth's harlotries lure him. 

He leans tow'rd the Voice! 



96 



Slotie ^Triumpljant 



L'ENVOI 

OLOVE triumphant over guilt and sin, 
My soul is soiled, but Thou shalt enter in ; 
My feet must stumble if I walk alone. 
Lonely my heart, till beating by Thine own, 
My will is weakness till it rest in Thine, 
Cut off, I wither, thirsting for the Vine, 
My deeds are dry leaves on a sapless tree, 
My life is Kf eless till it live in Thee ! 



97 



IV 



"I do love 
My country's good." 

— Shakespeare. 



L.of 
99 



Hotie SCtfttmjjfjant 



HAIL, AMERICA! 

HAIL! child of peak and prairie, 
Where'er the morning breaks 
Between the two gray oceans, 

Between the Gulf and Lakes ! 
O wrested from the wilderness 

And sown with sweat and tears ! 
O answer of the patriot's prayer, 

Goal of the pioneers! — 
Rich fabric of the fifty States, 

Woven at Freedom's loom. 
Three hundred years of history. 

Three thousand miles of bloom ! 
Stand up, good fellows! lift each glass. 

And join the toast with me: 
A merica ! A mer'ica ! 
Our Motherland, America! 

A health to thine and Thee! 



101 



aotje JTrltttuptjant 



THE COMING SINGER 

NONE of the old tunes, poet ! 
Give us the Song of the Real ! 
Out of the stuff of Freedom 
Fashion a new ideal! 

No verse in a patron's palace 

From mouths that sing for a crust, 

But from lips on fire with the soul's desire 
That sing because they must ! 

For this is the land of our winning, 
And the Vision grows and grows! 

Shod with the sands of Cuba, 

Crowned with the Klondike snows ! 

A Mother of fifty daughters. 
Sunburnt and rude and strong, 

She has had the glory of conquest. 
And she waits the wonder of song. 

By our fathers' swords ! we love her ! 

And every child of her brood — 
These starry States that cluster 

In the pure, proud sisterhood! 
102 



aotje Zviumpi)ant 



We will dip no quill with feathers ; 

We will write with a blunted pen ; 
In the ink of our sweat we will find it yet, 

The song that is fit for men ! 

And the woodsman he shall sing it, 
And his axe shall mark the time; 

And the bearded lips of the boatman 
While his oar-blades fall in rhyme; 

And the man with his fist on the throttle, 
And the man with his foot on the brake. 

And the man who will scoff at danger 
And die for a comrade's sake; 

And the Hand that wrought the Vision 
With prairie and peak and stream 

Shall guide the hand of the workman 
And help him to trace his dream ! — 

Till the rugged lines grow perfect, 
And round to a faultless whole, 

For the West will have found her singer 
When her singer has found his soul ! 



103 



aotoe J!Crtttmiiiftant 



THE NEW PATRIOT 

WHO is the patriot? he who lights 
The torch of war from hill to hill? 
Or he who kindles on the heights 
The beacon of a world's good-will? 

Who is the patriot? he who nails 

A flag to some defiant pole? 
Or he who follows dangerous trails. 

And guides a people to its goal? 

Who is the patriot? he who sends 
A boastful challenge o'er the sea? 

Or he who sows the earth with friends, 
And reaps world-wide fraternity? 

Who is the patriot? Bonaparte, 
Who made a continent his prey? 

Or Tolstoi of the gentle heart, 

Who shares the peasant's toilsome day? 

Is it the Scribe, race-proud, serene, 
Smiling his scorn from Moses' seat? 

Or the compassionate Nazarene, 
With Roman publicans at meat? 
104 



2loi3e JKtittmiJijant 



Who is the patriot? It is he 

Who knows no boundary, race, or creed, 
Whose nation is humanity, 

Whose countrymen all souls that need; 

Whose first allegiance is vowed 

To the fair land that gave him birth, 

Yet serves among the doubting crowd 
The broader interests of Earth. 

The soil that bred the pioneers 

He loves and guards, yet loves the more 
That larger land without frontiers. 

Those wider seas without a shore. 

If duty calls, the first to die 

On fields of honor and of fame. 

But readier, where the vanquish'd lie. 
To heal the wounded, raise the lame. 

Who is the patriot ? Only he 

Whose business is the general good, 

Whose keenest sword is sympathy, 
Whose dearest flag is brotherhood. 



105 



ILabe JSCtiuniiJiiant 



THE MASTERS 

INCOMPARABLE white galaxy of suns! 
O stars of song whose lustre blinds the 
day — 
^schylus, Homer, Shakespeare, — deathless 
ones 
Holding on high your proud and lonely way ! 

Rulers of Night's domain of domeless space. 
Transcendent thrones, victorious over Time, 

Slaying with splendor from your distant place 
A thousand flickering satellites of rhyme! 

God ! what are we, that underneath such skies 
We dare to light our tapers! From afar 

The constellations watch this mad emprise: 
A puny candle challenging a star! 



106 



aobe ffiviumiJtjant 



A MODERN POET 

THOSE radiant spirits who, the suns of 
song, 
Shine with the distant permanence of a star, 
A calm, incomparable, undying throng. 
Rebuke our flickering tapers from afar. 

And yet the modern poet 'neath that vast 

Confuting sky, may walk with unbowed head ; 

Those stellar voices sang a withering past, — 
Their art is deathless, but their world is dead ! 

Slain on the lips hath perish'd praise of kings. 
Sceptres have bent like straw, and rust makes 
free 
With crowns and castles — Pride's poor trivial 
things — 
As Winter's white tooth gnaws the helpless 
tree ! 

Dead are the masters, — now the slaves shall 
rule; 
Still blind with tyranny, ignorant of their 
power ; — 

107 



iLot3f ©vittttifltiant 



Democracy, unchain'd to sect and school, 

Strides darkly forth to meet her destined 
hour! 

For lo ! at last within the barbarous West 

A fair, unfetter'd land has risen and reigned, 

Throned in the crags, and from her tawny 
breast 
The milk of liberty has long been drained, 

Till there have grown fierce daughters in her 
gates. 

Guarding the jealous portals of the free, 
A stalwart sisterhood of equal States, 

Hand clasping hand with love from sea to sea ! 

Great Motherland arisen from the waves. 

Lake-girdled, polar-crown'd, and tropic-shod. 

Who bought her freedom with a million graves, 
And never bowed the knee except to God! 

Shall feudal rhymesters of an outworn brood. 
In pale, perfunctory verse sing such as she? 

Rather a race unkempt, athletic, rude. 

Rough as the prairies, tameless as the sea! 
108 



%o\)t Eviumpfiunt 



Yet not alone upon these rugged coasts 

Hath Freedom raised her throne; she reigns 
where'er 

Serfs cry for vengeance to the Lord of Hosts, 
Or exiled peasants grasp the sword of prayer. 

True to their vision were the bards of old, 

But this more glorious dream demands new 
wings ; 
Hail him who soared to heights remote and cold, 
Thrice hail, who loves the People's cause, and 
sings ! 

He may not lord those empires of the skies 
Where art, immutable, immortal, gleams, 

But he will strip the scales from slumbering eyes. 
And nations half-awake shall learn their 
dreams ! 

Great God! give us to strike the People's lyre 
Once, only once! then perish if we must! 

One hour of life, to lead that grander choir 
Whose noblest notes will echo o'er our dust! 

And when Thy hand has seal'd these lips with 
clay, 
And we are soil for Earth's recurrent Springs, 
109 



Hoiie <!rtimH|i!jant 



Speed Thou the feet that scale the heavenward 
way, 
And touch with quenchless fire each tongue 
that sings ! 

Until that sturdier race of bards arise, 

Sprung from the toilers at the bench and 
plough, — 

The splendor of the Past within their eyes. 
The grandeur of the Present on their brow ! 



110 



tLoi^t KiittinjjJjant 



THE NEW AGE 

WHEN navies are forgotten 
And fleets are useless things, 
When the dove shall warm her bosom 
Beneath the eagle's wings, — 

When memory of battles 

At last is strange and old, 
When nations have one banner 

And creeds have found one fold, — 

When the Hand that sprinkles midnight 
With its powdered drift of suns 

Has hushed this tiny tumult 

Of sects and swords and guns, — 

Then Hate's last note of discord 
In all God's worlds shall cease. 

In the conquest which is service. 
In the victory which is peace ! 



Ill 



Eobe STtiutntiliant 



SON OF THE PURITANS 

SON of the Puritans, can it be thou, 
Harness'd for slaughter with bayonet 
and blade? 
Weeds in thy furrows, rust on thy plough. 
Death for thy trade? 

Fruitless the planting in War's black soil ! 

What do the red-handed husbandmen reap ? — 
Cripples that languish, children that toil. 

Widows who weep! 

Ah, these death-gleaners must learn as they mow 
Darkest of secrets that History hoards: 

Only a harvest of hatred can grow 
From a sowing of swords! 



lis 



tLoiyt 2CtittmiJi)ant 



DIVES AND LAZARUS, 1904 



ONE sat in his hall, 
One lay at the gate; 
One had praise from all, 
One had hate. 

What can make amends 

When disaster flogs? 
One had kings for friends, 

One had dogs ! 

One, when robbed by Death, 

Yielded up his bags; 
One lost only breath 

And his rags. 

Yet that very night 

Saw the Gulf uncrossed, 

Lazarus clothed in light; 
Dives lost! 

And one writhing soul 

Leam'd this truth's sad force: 
113 



ILoht Zvinmpi)unt 



Hell's most torturing coal 
Is remorse. 

Oh, that wild, wild cry ! — 
" Bridge this gulf for us, 
Thou enthroned on high, 
Lazarus ! " 



Sleek and plunder- fed. 

Dives of to-day. 
Hoard your wine and bread 

While you may ! 

Gorge in kingly state ! — 
But that gaunt and grim 

Lazarus at your gate — 
What of him ! 

Call 3^our thefts " a trust " - 
Words can have no weight 

With the always just 
Scales of Fate. 

Hospitals and schools 
Built on public fraud 

Are a sop that fools 
Throw at God ! 
114 



aolje tRvinmpftunt 



Turn your heavy eyes 

Tow'rd your palace doors, 

Help that wretch to rise ! 
Heal his sores! 

Faint from scourge and rod, 
Foul with blood and dust, 

Hear him cry — great God ! 
For a crust ! 

Ah! the chasm fixed 
Between him and you 

Is the gulf betwixt 
False and true ! 

Slave, whose table groans 
With all fruits that be ! 

Beggar on the stones, 
Starved, yet free! 

Which shall stand, uncowed, 
Clean, without scar, 

Before History's proud 
Judgment bar? 



115 



2LoUt ©tittWflJiant 



THE CHRISTMAS FOR AMERICA 

1HEAR no angels in the skies, 
I hear the toiler mourn his lot, — 
I catch a thousand mingled cries : 
" Fate rules," " God is," and " God is not. 



J? 



I see no hillsides gray with sheep, 
I meet no Magi on the road ; 

I see the crippled beggar creep, 

Striving to stand beneath his load. 

O Nazareth Carpenter who cursed 
The pride and avarice of thy day, 

We would observe thy birth, but first 
Thy Sermon on the Mount obey. 

If thou shouldst come once more to men 
In this, the later Promised Land, 

Would not thy great heart break again 
To find these wrongs on every hand: 

Labor, heart-smitten, left to die. 

Beneath the feet of conquest hurled, 

Or, lifting hatred's torch on high. 
Wreaking revenge upon the world? 
116 



2LoUe STtittWiJijant 



galaxy of virgin States, 

White constellation of all time! — 
What blackness as of Death awaits 

If these pure stars grow dark with crime ! 

1 have no Holy Land but thee, 
Nation whose hills and prairies wait 

The new, the last Nativity, — 

That Justice which shall make us great! 

Though Freedom's eagle bleeds, he still 
Soars from his eyrie tow'rd the sun, 

May his torn wings gain strength until 
That blazing goal of truth be won! 

Vast, wide-stretch'd land! Though years are 
long. 

When Love's great ends are served in us, 
We shall be clean as well as strong. 

Kind as we are victorious! 

No longer lies at Bethlehem's inn 

Lord Jesus in the mangercd hay, 
Where selfish Wealth repents its sin 

The poor man's Christ is born to-day ! 



117 



2Lot3e SCttumjitiant 



THE WORLD'S NEW WATERWAY 

(The Proposed Isthmian Cartel) 

THOUGH wedded continents unclasp their 
hands 
Which they had plighted, palm to palm, in 
youth. 
Still closer ties shall bind these severed lands — 
A growing love of liberty and truth. 



Disjoin'd but not divorc'd, though twain still 
one, 
One in their Western faith, their Eastern 
birth, 
Nursed in one cradle 'neath the Orient sun. 
Sent forth alike to lord this larger earth ! 

O destined lands, that held aloft to God 

The torch of truth unquench'd through hos- 
tile years! 
O shores that Bolivar and Lincoln trod ! 

O fields of plenty sown with blood and tears! 
118 



llot3e Evinmpf^ant 



Between your coasts, uniting them the more, 
Trade's white-wing'd couriers now shall come 
and go, 
And Peace and Progress guard each trustful 
shore, 
While the long future centuries goalward 
flow! 



119 



ILotie Eviximpftnnt 



TO A MODERN OFFICE BUILDING 

WHAT poet dreamed thee ? miracle of steel, 
Soaring above the steeples to the sky; 
What artist drew thee with a holy zeal 

Before thy mighty structure rose on high? 

Springing from base to cornice with proud ease, 
Vast slender cube, hive of the human cells, 

Was man, thy maker, such a mote as these 
Who swarm within thee, as their task compels ? 

Or did some giant with a careless hand 

Lift high these light screen-walls and airy 
frame. 
With glad Olympian laughter as he scanned 
Thy dwarfed companions, envious of such 
fame ? 

O watchman of the city at thy feet. 

Gigantic Argus with the countless eyes. 

Hearing the drone of traffic from the street 
Like some incessant litany arise! 

Labor's cathedral, castle of finance! 
No mediaeval masterpiece of stone 
120 



%o\^t Zvinmpftant 



Lifted a grander pile to face God's glance 
Than thou upholdest to the heavens alone. 

The girder that supports thy weight is thought, 
Thy piers and columns type the joys of flight, 

Thy very walls within my heart have wrought 
Their symbol of the poetry of height. 

Art thou the scion of some Titan brood. 

Some Atlas on whose back earth's toil is laid? 

Rising, self-urged, in patient solitude 
Above the smoky, foul abyss of trade.? 

Nay, thou art offspring of more buoyant race, 
A young, fair god, the athlete of the skies. 

With sinewy limbs, with joy upon thy face. 
With dauntless prophecy within thine eyes ! 

The type art thou of this vast land to me, 
Late risen o'er its fellows, proud and great. 

The home of toil and yet superbly free, 

Lifting with easy grace Time's monstrous 
weight ! 



121 



aobr Evinm»finnt 



THE POET FOR TO-DAY 

WE have sonnets enough, and songs 
enough, 
And ballads enough, God knows! 
But we want to-day that cosmic stuff 
Whence primitive feeling glows, 

Grown, organized to the needs of rhyme 
Through the old instinctive laws, 

With a meaning broad as the boughs of time 
And deep as the roots of cause. 

It is passion and power that we need to-day, 
We have grace and taste full store ; 

We need a man who will say his say 
With a strength unguessed before : — 

No lips that sing at a patron's nod 

For the price of a jester's crust. 
But a voice whose sagas shall live with God 

When the lyres of earth are rust ; — 

A soul, though clean of the stains of lust. 
Which loves all God calls fair, 

U2 



Hotie Evinmpf^ant 



With feet that are soiled with the common dust, 
And nature honest and bare; — 

A man who will heed the cry of the poor 
Clutched fast in the claws of greed, 

Who will fight to the death for the sound and 
sure 
In the smoky battles of creed ; — 

A spirit deaf to alluring sounds 
More siren than Truth's command, 

God's athlete, wrestling with all th^t wounds 
Home, honor, and native land ; 

Whose lines shall glow like molten steel 

From being forged in his soul, 
Till the very anvil shall bum to feel 

The breath of the quenchless coal! 

Your dainty wordsters may cry, " Uncouth ! " 
As they shrink from his bellows' glow, 

But the fire he fans is immortal youth, 
And how should the bloodless know ! 

Oh, safety and ease are always spumed 

By the poet of God's desire ; 
Can you keep your fingers from being bumcd 

If you handle a harp of fire? 
123 



JLobe JKttttntflJjant 



NEW ENGLAND 
I. 

BLEAK was the sea, and pitiless the shore, 
When our brave fathers, tyrant-driven, 
accurs'd, 
Unlock'd the future's inauspicious door. 

And, bold of brow, trod Freedom's threshold 
first. 
Staunch hearts! beneath the arrogant garb of 
sect 
Beat bosoms warmed by fires not lit on earth, 
And the real man — supreme, secure, erect — 

Gave to an iron creed its human worth. 
The cold frosts fell relentless on the grain. 

The cunning savage lurked by rock and tree. 
No sound was heard in that lone, desolate plain 

Save, on the rocks, the ravings of the sea. 
Yet, O our fathers, how your hands were stayed ! 
The Pilgrim's God was with you — ye were un- 
dismayed ! 

n. 

And we, the scions of a gentler age, 

The latest birth of slow-maturing Time — 
124 



1Lo\}t SCriunnJijant 



Shall we be heirs of that high heritage, 

Partakers of that legacy sublime, 
And not be sharers of their solemn vow — 

Those forest-conquering heroes, dauntless, 
free, 
By the long, treacherous cape which, then as 
now. 
With gaunt, crook'd finger beckoned to the 
sea? 
Tell us, ye stars, that watched their lonely fires. 

Yea, watch each generation as it runs — 
The witness of their prayers, and our desires 
High as their own — say, are we not their 
sons ? 
Shall not the virtues which have made them 

great 
Rule, animate, enthrall our hearts, control our 
State? 

III. 

Thou art the rough nurse of a hero-brood, 

New England, and their mighty limbs by 
thee 
Were fashioned — they, the bards, the warriors 
rude. 
Whom Time hath dowered with fame imper- 
ishably. 

125 



aoiic SCtlunijiljant 



But not alone for this I love thee ; I 

On thy bare mother-breast have laid my head, 
And drunk the cool, deep silence, while the sky. 

Confederate of my joy, laughed o'er my bed. 
Thus have I lain till half I seemed a part — 

In my clairvoyant mood — of Nature's plan ;• 
The very landscape crept into my heart. 

And they were one — the sense, the soul, of 
man; 
My kinship with life's myriad forms I knew : — 
Worms in the world of green, wings in the world 
of blue ! 

IV. 

Nor less I loved thee in those hours of blight 

When winter fell upon thee like a sleep; 
Again I watch along the drifted white 

The dark triangle of the snow-plough sweep. 
Behold the oxen draw the creaking sled, 

Hear the sharp sleet rehearse upon the pane, 
See the wise village prophets shake the head 

While through the elms the witless winds com- 
plain. 
Ah, in those hours, O native hills! I know 

Alert beneath thy guise of seeming dead 
The roots are warm, the saps of summer flow. 

The wings of immortality are bred ! 

126 



aottir JTrittntjiiiant 



In all things reigns one immanent Control: 
The life beneath the snow, the Life within my 
soul! 

V. 

Then hail, ye hills! like rough-hewn temples 
set, 

With granite beams, upon this earth of God ! 
Austerer halls of worship never yet 

Had feet of Puritan or Pilgrim trod: 
Abrupt Chocorua, Greylock's hoary height, 

Katahdin, with her peak of bare, scarr'd 
stone, 
Sloping Monadnock, and, in loftier flight. 

Thou, rising to the eternal heavens, alone — 
Thy Sun-wooed sisters, less divinely proud, 

Bribed to compliance by their suitor's gold — 
Thou, wrapt in thy stern drapery of a cloud. 

Chaste, passionless, inviolably cold. 
Mount Washington ! sky-shouldering, freedom- 
crowned, 
Compatriot with the windy blue above, around! 

VI. 

And hail, ye waters! whether, mountain-locked, 

The timid lake shines in tlie valley's palm, 

127 



aotie ©titimjjijant 



Where strident human discord never mocked 

With ahen clamor the primeval calm ; 
Or whether streams insistent to the sea 

Urge their impatient way, till far behind 
The hills are left, and, black with industry, 
Through long, low meadow-lands their path 
they wind. 
O'er stream and lake alike the slight canoe, 
Artful though forest-bom, once found its 
course. 
By dark hands guided which the war-axe 
knew — 
Hands skilled in dexterous craft and fearless 
force. 
Now by those waters blue the warriors sleep ; 
The still heights taciturn the destined secret 
keep! 

vn. 

Perished that forest-nurtur'd race; the winds 
Have scattered past recall their nameless dust. 
Forerunners they of more heroic kinds. 

The harsh Fates slew them, but the Fates were 
just. 
Thou more intrepid brood! these hills were 
thine 
Which had been theirs, O valiant elder band ! 
128 



%oiit JRviump'^uni 



Let us in our unventurous ease, supine, 

Sparc those a thought who met the time's de- 
mand. 
Ploughed these unwilHng plains, these wood- 
lands cleared. 
The sons of God because the sons of Toil, 
Who in this wilderness their temples reared, 
But knew no shrine more sacred than their 
soil. 
When tyranny this freeman breed defied, 
Through the hot lips of merciless cannon they 
replied ! 

vm. 

Who was it, when the British thunders broke. 
And Western Conquest staggered to her 
fall — 
Who was it then unchained the tyrant-yoke? 

Oh, answer, memory-haunted Faneuil Hall! 
And when our North was menaced by her foes. 

Blind with the lust of gold, deaf as the sea, 
Though bondsmen plead for pity, who arose 
And sundered first those shackles — who but 
thee? 
All-sheltering as a mother, thou didst stand. 
New England, with thine arms outstretch'd 
to save; 

129 



sialic 8Ctittmjjf)ant 



Europe, the prairied West, on either hand. 

And, clinging to thy garment's hem, the slave ! 
And shall we love thee less whom, at thy shrine, 
Our sires pledged in their hearts' best blood — 
that costliest wine? 

IX. 

Nay! though we wander where against the sky 
The sun-burnt leagues of low plain stretch 
away, 
Or where on silver coasts the warm waves sigh 
And green, palm-crown'd Decembers vie with 
May, 
We still are thine; and in our sad, fond dream. 
They rest again — these weary feet that 
roam: 
We see the farm, the orchard, and the stream. 

And, rising to the heavens, the hills of home. 
The quest of gain has called us from thy breast, 

Our common mother! but the noisy mart 
Can never drown the inner voice of rest; 

The child's pure peace still harbors in our 
heart. 
Though far our footsteps stray, though years 

be long. 
The kindred loves of home and truth shall keep 
us strong! 

130 



*' He strikes a hundred lyres, a thousand strings, 
Yet one at heart are all the songs he sings," 



131 



Hobe ^vinmpftani 



A SONG OF DESIRE 

THOU dreamer with the milHon moods, 
Of restless heart hke me, 
Lay thy white hands against my breast 
And cool its pain, O Sea ! 

O wanderer of the unseen paths, 

Restless of heart as I, 
Blow hither, from thy caves of blue, 

Wind of the healing sky! 

O treader of the fiery way, 

With passionate heart like mine. 

Hold to my lips thy healthful cup 
Brimmed with its blood-red wine ! 

O countless watchers of the night. 

Of sleepless heart like me. 
Pour your white beauty in my soul, 

Till I grow calm as ye ! 

O sea, O sun, O wind and stars, 
(O hungry heart that longs!) 

Feed my starved lips with life, with love. 
And touch my tongue with songs ! 
133 



aobt Evinm»l^unt 



A SONG OF MEMORY 

WHEN the frosts are pale with malice, 
When the hoarse northeasters blow, 
When the clouds are gray and heartless. 
And the roads are faint with snow, — 
Suddenly the gale grows silent. 

Till the white world swims to view. 
And the hush and mystery hold me 
That those farmhouse evenings knew. 

When the meanest branch is vocal, 

When the blue is thick with wings, 
And the voice of lad and lover 

One with every throat that sings, 
Then the deathless summers waken. 

And my fingers lose the pen. 
While the stern Past lends me faces 

It can never give again. 

When the frost has come with banners 

And has captured every hill. 
When the staunchest flower has perish'd, 

And forsaken boughs are still ; 

134! 



aotie i!CviuttHJi|ant 



Then old memories lead me backward 
Down lost roadways brown and wild, 

Where 'twas rapture to be living, 
Where 'twas heaven to be a child. 



135 



aob^ ZTtiunttifiant 



THE GLIMPSE 

HOW often I have seen in city streets 
Some woman's face, with eyes so Hke the 
sky 
One looks to see a bird's wing brush the blue, 
With lips arched like the veriest bow of love. 
And hair that falls a glory round her brow; 
And yet within, beneath, behind it all. 
Have spied, with that intenser sight, my soul, 
Such hungry longings feeding on themselves 
As would shame Famine — o'er the iron song 
Of wheels and hoofs, have heard with spirit ear, 
Undeafen'd by an instant sympathy. 
The tears of all the mothers of the world. 



136 



7Loi}t Zvimn»i)(ini 



TO MOTHER NATURE 

NATURE, in thy largess, grant 
I may be thy confidant ! 
Taste who will life's roadside cheer 
(Tho' my heart doth hold it dear — 
Song and wine and trees and grass, 
All the joys that flash and pass), 
I must put within my prayer 
Gifts more intimate and rare. 
Show me how dry branches throw 
Such blue shadows on the snow, — 
Tell me how the wind can fare 
On his unseen feet of air, — 
Show me how the spider's loom 
Weaves the fabric from her womb, — 
Lead me to those brooks of morn 
Where a woman's laugh is born, — 
Let me taste the sap that flows 
Through the blushes of a rose, 
Yea, and drain the blood which runs 
From the heart of dying suns, — 
Teach me how the butterfly 
Guessed at immortality, — 

137 



ILoije 2Ct:itttinii)ant 



Let me follow up the track 

Of Love's deathless Zodiac 

Where Joy climbs among the spheres 

Circled by her moon of tears, — 

Tell me how, when I forget 

All the schools have taught me, yet 

I recall each trivial thing 

In a golden, far-off Spring, — 

Give me whispered hints how I 

May instruct my heart to fly 

Where the baffling Vision gleams 

Till I overtake my dreams, 

And the impossible be done 

When the Wish and Deed grow one ! 



138 



aolje STttttmiJiiant 



THE SEA 

CO^IE down with me to the moon-led sea, 
Where the long wave ebbs and fills. 
Are these the tides that follow 
As the lunar impulse wills? 

Nay, rather this is the heart of God, 

Naked under the sky. 
And we hear its pulse with wonder — 

The shore, and the clouds, and I! 

Unearthly, awful, uncompelled. 

Eternity framed in clay. 
The urge of exhaustless passions, 

Rocking beneath the gray! 

Its life is the blood of the universe 

Through cosmic arteries hurled. 
With the throb of its giant pulses 

God feeds the veins of the world ! 

And the lands are wrinkled and gray with time 
And scored with a thousand scars. 

But the sea is the soul of the Infinite, 
Swinging beneath the stars! 

189 



2Lot)e 2rtium)))jant 



THE WAVERLEY OAKS 

(The famous Waverley Oaks, in Waverley Massachusetts, are 
probably the oldest in America. Professor Agassiz estimated the 
age of one of the group at about a thousand years.) 

HOW many a fruitful season ye have 
known, — 
The planting, and the scything, and the 
sheaves ! 
While races throve and died, ye tower'd alone, 
Shedding the centuries lightly as your leaves. 

Shielding from tempest's wrath each trustful 
nest 
That asks a shelter from the heat or rain. 
Wrestling with winds that wound Earth's inno- 
cent breast. 
Huge athletes, gnarled, storm-wounded, yet 
unslain ! 

Contemptuous of decay, ye watched them 
pass — 
The days unwarmed by smiles, unwet by 
tears. 
When o'er the forests and the unshorn grass, 
Suns rose and waned on lone, primeval years ; 
140 



2LoUe SCtiumiJijant 



Then came through gates of birth each strange, 
new guest — 
Poor, helpless babes that, since that distant 
morn, 
In human cradles or on Nature's breast, 

Have lived their moment 'neath your genial 
scorn. 

Yes, ye have watched the generations die 
After their Httle day of mirth and toil. 

And still stretch forth your brawny arms on 
high. 
Gigantic guardians of New England soil! 



141 



WLoi}t ©tiumiJtiant 



THE APRIL BOY 

AS I went through the April-world 
To watch my violets blow, 
I met a child I long had loved 
Whose heart was clean as snow. 

" Come hither, little White-of-Soul, 
Now tell me how you fare ! " 
He ran to me, he sprang at me, 
The sun was in his hair. 

His eyes were laughing like his lips, 

He had an April look. 
His feet were wet as ocean shells 

From wading in the brook. 

And Nature, too, became a child; 

As far as eye could see 
The world was one big romping-ground 

For Earth, the Boy, and Me! 

I quite forgot my violets. 
His eyes were both so blue. 

His merry lips that press'd my own 
Were mayflowers moist with dew; 
142 



2LoUe 2Ctittm»i)ant 



And as we took the road to town, 

The httle lad and I, 
He seemed to hold the whole of Spring 

And brush the Winter by. 

The birds all knew him, that I'm sure. 
They ne'er sang thus for me; 

The budding branches seemed to reach 
To kiss each dimpled knee. 

And when I left him near his home, 
" Good-by, big man," he said ; 
" Good-by, Sir April," I returned, — 
He shouted, laughed, and fled. 



143 



iLoi}t Zviump^ant 



A SONG OF SAILING 

AT last the loud wind rounds with health 
The lean cheek of our sail, 
The scourging brine is all our wealth, 
But homeward leads the trail, — 
All hail! 

Ah, soon the harbor buoy and bar, 

And soon the face that waits. 
The crowded docks, the lighthouse star, 

And welcoming garden gates. 
My mates! 

Our stout boat rams the towering waves 
That hide heaven's windy dome, 

The menace of their fury braves. 
And tossing them to foam. 
Steers home ! 

Her old patch'd topsail curves once more. 

Gray as a sea-bird's wing. 
With breeze astern, she seeks the shore 
Swift as a living thing — 
Then sing : — 
144 



2Lotje ©viumiiijant 



Land ho! land ho! the surfs in sight. 
The soft beach shines like snow; 

From out To-day has been our -flight 
Into the Long Ago! — 
Land ho! 



145 



Eoiit Ztiump^^nt 



TO A BROKEN SEA - SHELL 

OLIPS that passionate waves have kissed 
In every sea; 
Cast on the shore, what have you left 
Save memory? 

Small wonder that ye whispered long 

Of lost delights. 
Those storms beneath the tropic sky — 

Those nights, those nights! 

But now although thy years of song, 

Dear shell, are past, 
'Tis only since some careless foot 

Crushed thee at last. 

Long prisoned in thy slender throat 

What glorious tone ! 
O poet of the waves, thy fate 

How like mine own! 

The waters of love's sea are salt 

With passionate tears. 
And my wild heart was tossed like thee, 

Long years, lon<G!; years! 
146 



lSLoi)t Zviumpfiunt 



Now cast upon the unheeding shore 

It sings the Past, 
And ever must, unless, like thee, 

It breaks at last! 



147 



tLoiyt STtiumtil^ant 



THE THIEF 

WITH all his purple spoils upon him 
Creeps back the plunderer Sea, 
Deep in his rajless caves he plunges, 
Fed full with robbery; 

His caverns filled with dead men's treasure, 
With coins and bones and pearl; 

For curtains and for golden carpet, 
The hair of some drowned girl! 

bandit with the white-plumed horsemen, 
Raiding a thousand shores, 

Thy coffers crammed with spars and anchors 
And wave-defeated oars! 

1 hear again thine ancient laughter. 
Thy mirthful, mad unrest, 

Yet catch the notes of shame and torture 
Within thy bravest jest. 

For lo ! there is a Hand that holds thee 

And curbs thy proudest wave, 
Thy boundaries have been set forever — 

Thou art thyself a slave! 
148 



3Lot)e STtftttniifjant 



The lash is given to wild taskmasters! 

Thy lips may foam with wrath, 
Still moons shall call and thou must follow, 

Still winds shall scourge thy path! 

O impotent thief! I scorn thy pillage, 

Marauder of pale coasts ! 
The brigands whom I dread are fiercer 

Than thou and all thy hosts ! 

For Death hath stolen friend and comrade, 

Love robbed the heart of rest. 
Sin snared a soul, while thou wast hoarding 

Some sailor's treasure-chest. 

O braggart, laughing o'er thy booty. 

Boast on till days are done, 
And the frail star where thou disportest 

Hath dropped into the sun! 



149 



Hoi^t Evlumpfiunt 



THE KINGDOM OF THE SUNRISE 

WHEN God had plough'd New England 
with a glacier 
And made it ready to be sown with man, 
He flung no mightier seed throughout these 
valleys 
Than, long before, across thy heights, 
Japan ! 

Men filled with dreams and daring, dark, in- 
trepid, 
Men who had learn'd to labor and to pray; 
We in our arrogance have called them pagans, 
Because they climb'd tow'rd Truth a different 
way. 

But when they sat within the doors of daybreak. 
Offering all lands the fruits of Orient toil, 

They roused the jealous wrath which hurl'd 
upon them 
The sons of conquest and the slaves of spoil! 

Whatever name be Thine, O Infinite Sower, 
Brahm, Buddha, Christ, according to our 
creed, 

150 



Hour Zvixitnpftunt 



Rescue these fields that Thou thyself hast 
planted ! — 
From the dcspoiler save Thy scattered seed ! 

O Dweller beyond Suns, O Throned in Silence! 

Look down on these loud conflicts — bid them 

cease ! 

Speed the great ends of love on Earth forever, 

And pluck this vulture from the heart of 

Peace ! 
June, 1904. 



151 



Hotoe STriumfltjant 



THE MAN-CHILD 

FROM the loins that know no languor, 
From the womb of the Divine, 
When the lords of flame and tempest 
Met to found my kingly line, 

Lo! I sprang, a child celestial, 
While the earth was still a coal 

Lighted at the white-hot brazier 
Where the sun evolved his soul. 

Thus I came and pass'd ; • the spaces 
Drank my spirit like a breath, 

Till, new-moulded, reincarnate, 
I defied the gods of Death, 

And upon this cooling planet 

Through the gates of birth I press'd. 

With the wonder of the memory 
Of the Universal Breast. 

Myriad forms that Mind hath fashioned 
Out of dust to serve its needs 

I am clad withal ; I worship 

And revile through all the creeds. 
162 



Hotir Zvinmpftant 



Harlot, vestal, saint, and pagan 

Blent their strains within my blood, 

Beast and serpent, slain and slayer, 
Monsters of the cosmic flood.* 

I have scourged with every tyrant, 
I have knelt at every shrine, 

I hold Sodom for my revel, 
I drink Egypt for my wine ! 

I am born of perfect women, 
I am come of stalwart males, 

I was nursed at Helen's bosom, 
I have followed viking sails! 

In my veins the Russ and Tartar, 
In my blood the Gaul and Hun, 

Corinth's lust and Sidon's barter, 
And Sahara's leagues of sun! 

All the deities man worships, 
All dark shades of the abyss, 

Lent their fury to my anger. 
Lent their passion to my kiss. 

When the poet's flame within me 
Leaps, as in the years that were, 
153 



2LoUe SCrftttnjjftant 



Lesbos lures and Sappho calls mc, 
And my feet must follow her! 

When the lover's pulse beats fiercely 
In my wrists and throat and face, 

It is Cleopatra holds me 

In the storm of her embrace! 

All Parnassus in one stanza, 

All of Egypt in one day, 
All the blue breadth of Nyanza, 

All the hot miles of Cathay! 

Thou whose red mouth is the beaker 
Whence I quaff such drowsy wine. 

Fear thou not this heart tempestuous, 
Though it beat so loud on thine. 

Fear thou not these rude, firm muscles ! 

They were sculptured worlds ago. 
When the gods of light and darkness 

Struggled for this star below! 

Kiss me, lips, and grow undying! 

Passionate bosom, closer lean! 
I, the son of all the cycles. 

Thus at last will crown thee queen !- 
154 



aoiie srtiumpJjant 



Sovereign o'er these quivering sinews, 
Tameless save to thy control — 

Thou who wieldest with thy beauty 
All the sceptre of my soul! 



155 



Elciie STritttufltiant 



TO A LOCOMOTIVE AT NIGHT 

O CYCLOPS with the one terrific eye, 
Charging upon me from thy cave, the 
Dark, 
With monstrous brawn and fleetness, nude and 
stark, 
Breathing thy futile wrath against the sky — 
Fierce giant of the rails, malign and sly ! 
As some gigantic missile toward its mark, 
Straight toward the heart of night and si- 
lence — hark ! 
Thou roarest through the blackness. Death's 
ally! 

With parched, hot hps upraised to sunless space. 
Drinking great distances with thirst un- 
quenched, 
Panting with the mad fury of thy flight, 
Like some huge athlete with his hands hard 
clenched 
At either side running thy desperate race. 

Thou vanishest down the track into the 
night ! 



156 



aobe SCrUtiniJijant 



THE CHILD WHO WENT AWAY 

''TnWAS here that it wandcr'd over the keys, 
JL Her dear hand brown and small, 

A lover would swear it was white as these. 
But it wasn't white at all, — 

By boating toughen'd, in hammocks tann'd, 

Yes — blister'd by racquets — the childish 
hand. 

The quaint pianoforte was small, 

Old-fashioned and out of tune. 
But her fingers fell as the petals fall 

In the gentlest wind of June, 
And the wondering keys at the soft command 
Gave all they knew to the dear brown hand ; 

Till, lost in the music made by her, 

The whole room grew less staid. 
The haircloth furniture seemed to stir. 

And Grandmother's stiff brocade 
Appeared to walk from the great gilt frame 
And curtsey and dance for the little dame. 

But at last the child's warm hand grew thin, 
And the white soul fled above, 
157 



ILobe StitttniJiiant 



Like a younger sister the girl had been, 

My love was a brother's love, 
Yet a glory was gone from the gray old farm, 
And the rocky pastures had lost their charm. 

And my boat rocks idly here by the bank, 
And the hammock whispers " Come," 

And the keys still wait in a patient rank 

Though their small white throats are dumb, — 

And if I touch them they only say : 

" Come back, come back from that far away ! " 

And the lilac-bush shades the low south room 

Just as it did of old, 
And the butterfly, deep in the milkweed's bloom. 

Is poising on wings of gold; 
But nothing is glad, while all is gay — 
The soul of the summer has slipped away. 

Yet look! your lilies are blooming, dear, 

Your roses climb the wall. 
And waiting for you in the garden here 

Are wicket, mallet, and ball. 
And your banjo stares with its sad round face. 
Mocking us all from its hiding-place. 

O child! do your dear hands never tire 
Of holding the harp of gold? 
158 



2lobe ^TtiumtJi^ant 



When you hear us sing in the village choir 

The songs that you loved of old, 
And our voices break — ah then, ah then, 
Don't you almost wish to be back again? 



159 



Hotie ffitiumjiiiant 



OUR FRIEND 

I KNOW not whether she be fair, 
If blue her eyes or gold her hair ; 
I have not marked her features well — 
Her spirit casts too strong a spell. 

Even in wintry frost and sleet, 
If one but pass her on the street, 
Though all the town be wrapp'd in furs, 
A sense of warmth and April stirs. 

Her lips may be as soft as those 
The bee is proffered by the rose — 
I do not know ; but this I'm sure : 
They smile alike on rich and poor. 

Her ear may be so fine a fleck 
It scarce casts shadow on her neck; 
I only know 'tis not too small 
To listen when the needy call. 

I know not if her hand be white, 
Or if her foot be arched and slight ; 
Her feet will run to carry aid, 
Her hand shower blessings unrcpaid. 
160 



HLoiit JrtfttmiJtjant 



If slie should die, some brush might trace 
The maiden's comeliness or grace; 
But most could only strive, ah yes, 
Somehow to fill the loneliness. 



161 



TLoi^t Zv'mmpft^nt 



THE CLOSED GENTIAN 

SEE what one breath of August did — 
Rebuke to persevering Art ! — 
With every maiden mystery hid, 

This perfect face, this virgin heart! 

Refusing to the wanton bee 

Those lips that innocence hath sealed, 
A type of rustic chastity 

That smiles and serves but will not yield. 

Thou standest, gentle flower, beside 
The homely road, the common way, 

Wearing thy beauty without pride 

Till dust and time have turned it gray. 



162 



aobe SCtfumpfjant 



TO POETRY 

THOU higher Truth, Love's sister, Wonder's 
bride ! 

larger Science with the God-turned face! 
Clasp my cold heart to thy supreme embrace 

Until my blood flow through me like a tide, 
And my sad, pulseless soul grow deified 
With the divinest currents of the race; 

1 stand upon this wandering star in space 
And pray thy coming, though all worlds divide ! 

Behold! I feel thy lips upon mine own 

Often, O Goddess, till thy wings sweep by 

And leave my spirit passionless as a nun's ; 

Then, ere I quite despair, gray Ocean's moan 

Resummons thee, or some red smouldering sky 

With mountain summits dipp'd in dying 

suns! 



163 



Hoi^t STtiutniiijant 



DESIRE 

PRAY, who's this captive I have caged? 
Is her name Desire? 
Ay ! and Midnight is her mother, 
And her father — Fire ! 

In my heart's red chamber 

How her fierce wings stir. 
As though old memories moved her, 

And the far home call'd to her. 

She was born where stars were straying 
Through the lost ways of the sky ; 

And I thought to make her prisoner — 
But the prisoner is I! 

For she spurns my silly shackles 

When the wild mood fires her breast, 

And I needs must follow, follow, 

Down the wing-paths of the west : — 

Then, straight up the walls of wonder, 

Till we vanish in the blue, 
Till (oh, look!) the largest ocean 

Dwindles to a drop of dew, — 
164 



fLoiie ffitittwjjjjant 



Till at last upon my forehead 
Night's hot zenith burns a kiss, 

And the earth b<}comes a glow-worm 
Twinkling through the black abys 

Then my captor leads me gently 
Homeward down the Milky Way, 

Shuts herself within her cloister, — 
But the key is thrown away ! 



165 



Hobe Eviumpftunt 



THE CALL OF THE COUNTRY 

OYOU left her arms so early, lusting for 
, the hurly-burly 

Of the huge, grim, grinning town; 
But the wander-fever died, and your weary 
spirit cried. 
Where the love of Earth, the Mother, hunts 
us down ; 
Where the ledgers lay so high that they hurt 
the aching eye, 
While the worried brain toiled without rest, 
O, then the Country called you, and her dear old 
sights enthralled you. 
And you longed to weep once more upon her 
breast. 
Don't you hear the voice from afar, dear boy. 

Hear it wherever you roam ? — 
Loud on your track, " Come back, come 
back. 
Back to the hills of home ! " 

Where the mocking whistles bluster, and the 
monstrous chimneys cluster. 
And the mad looms curse and brawl, 
166 



aoljc CTriumflijiTnt 



Where the human torrent pours, weak and 
wretched from the doors. 
Don't you hear again the patient Mother 
call? 
There's a whisper in your ear of the sounds that 
once were dear — 
Browsing cattle, barking dogs, bragging 
cocks ; 
O, the hungry horses neighing, O, the odors of 
the haying, 
O, the company and comfort of the flocks ! 
Yes, you hear the voice where the city 
roars 
Through its narrow banks and high. 
Wherever you roam, " Come home, come 
home. 
Home to my arms to die ! " 

Through the haste and fret of trade comes the 
dream that cannot fade. 
Of the never-laboring leisure of the ox, 
Of the purple shadows deep, basking on the 
roofs asleep. 
Of the permanence and patience of the rocks ! 
Boy, forget the blistering street where the flag- 
gings bum your feet ; 
Boy, forget the ugly trolley's vulgar song; 
167 



aotie ^vinmpijiini 



still remains the land of wonder, — blue skies 
over, green earth under. 
Where the fainting soul again grows swift 
and strong; 
Still comes the cry of the Long Ago, 
Of the Far-away-in-the-Past, 
" Here be your rest, my breast, my breast, 
Back on my breast at last ! " 



THE END. 



168 



OCT 6 1904 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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